The Graduation Class
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: NOW UNDER REWRITE!  Introducing lady Assassins who so far only exist as names and footnotes in the canon, and telling their stories. The first class of girls is about to graduate from the Assassins' School. REVISED CHAPTER ADDED as Chapter 19. 07/11/11
1. Prologue: in the chapel

_**The Graduation Class**_

_(An Alice Band story. Alice has been teaching for just over seven years at the Assassins' Guild school, from its first year of co-educational status. She has seen the first intake of girl pupils arrive, settle in, and grow through seven years' of training and education. She has taught them, been Housemistress to those assigned to her care in Tump House, listened to their confidences, bonded with them, shouted at them, sympathized with them, shared in their successes and failures. But now that first intake of eleven year olds are eighteen. They – and their teacher – now face the greatest test of all.)_

Alice stood in the gloom of the Assassins' Guild chapel. This was a simple multi-devotional facility, with the principal Gods and Goddesses of the Discworld each honoured at his or her own wall niche, sometimes with a small altar.

She was unsurprised to see she was not the only person present.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes stood in fierce devotion before the altar of Offler, a god even White Howondalandians honoured, hands clasped and head slightly bowed.

Madame Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignarde les Deux-Epées was similarly silent in front of the Goddess Kay-Li, the fearsome battle-deity portrayed as holding a different weapon in each of her six arms, even whose protruding tongue was depicted as a double-bladed scimitar.

Joan-Sanderson-Reeves, the Domestic Science mistress, primly attached a small silver devotional spatula to the altar of Anoia, Goddess Of Unsticking things That Get Stuck in Drawers. This was a new addition to the Chapel, added largely at Joan's formidable insistence.

Even Mericet, a man thought to be seeking Zombie status in advance of physical death, was in quiet contemplation at the altar of Fate.

Stepping discreetly forward, Alice paused at the representation of Blind Io. The old memories and mixed feelings started to surface. She bit down the bile, and subvocalised a prayer:

_Now let's get this straight. I don't like you. I have to accept you exist because I've seen the proof. I believe you exist. But I just don't believe you give a damn. My father during his life was your Bishop on Earth, or at least in Quirm. If prayer means anything, and I frankly don't believe you care for our prayers, it works best when it's selfless and given up for the welfare of others, yes? That's what my father always taught me. And he worked for You, so listen: _get them through tonight alive.

_That's the all and everything I ask: get them through tonight alive. Then you and I might start having more of a dialogue more often. You know who I am. Bishop Band's daughter. Remember him? He served you loyally in the diocese of Quirm, he was beaten to the very top job by Hughnon Ridcully, he died of disillusionment and a crisis of faith. Now as it happens I don't have a crisis of faith as I lost my faith in you when I was fourteen. You exist. It's up to you to prove I'm wrong, and then maybe we can have more of a dialogue more often. It's up to you. Just get them through to tomorrow morning. _

Alice made a perfunctory bow to the altar that would have drawn applause from atheists, then turned and left. In the dull Ankh-Morpork evening sunshine, she noticed a raven regarding her with interest. She nodded to it, just in case, and walked on. _Two hours to go before Briefing, and then we take our places_.

About now, the pupils, soon to be pupils no more whatever the outcome, would be contemplating their own preparations.

Alice contemplated an early dinner. No High Table tonight, she thought. The teaching faculty would be eating in a separate refectory, as their other duties allowed. And tonight was the biggest Duty of all.


	2. Mature Students

_Another slightly rewritten chapter. Emmanuelle, your canonical backstory is a pig to cater to!_

Alice didn't remember what she ate. It was just a method of passing time and fuelling her body. Guild food was usually wholesome and well-prepared but that evening it was merely starch, sugar, protein and fat. She passed the time re-reading the Concordat, as she knew many of her students would be, and tried to attune herself to the necessary ordeal that lay ahead for them. She'd had to undergo it herself, after all, as a mature entrant to the Guild, to qualify for the Black. _At least they get seven years to prepare. We had barely a year. _

Her mind went back eight or nine years…

Alice Band, aged twenty-three, a reluctant graduate of the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies, who, in the circumstances of her latter years there, is _not _one of its starred alumni, and later a graduate with Firsts from the Quirm College of Archaeology, is seated with twenty-nine others in a light airy conference room on Filigree Street. Everybody in that room, they have just been reminded by Dr Cruces, has come to the attention of the Guild of Assassins for the same reason and has something in common. His deputy Dotor Downey, whose white-haired seeming benevolence did not deceive Alice one little bit, and several othe very senior Assassins, were watching the batch of trainees intently, as if reading them for reaction and possible character flaws.

She looked around the room. The fierce red-haired girl from a strange foreign place, who alternated girlish innocence with hard-eyed glares, putting her in mind of a combat-hardened fighting soldier. _Maybe she was? _The older woman, seemingly out of place until you saw the look in her eye, her brunette hair going to grey. the big hearty-looking sporty type, with _PE Master_ written all over him. The dapper and slightly fey little accountant. _What did such a mousy little man do to arrive here? _Her attention went back to Cruces.

"None of you are Guild members, and yet at one time or another, you have all, without exception, accepted money in return for facilitating annulments. I'm glad that in our private discussions with you, you have all agreed that this is a regrettable state of affairs that the Guild simply cannot allow to continue. We just cannot allow freelance, non-Guild, Assassins to operate."

Cruces paused to allow this to sink in. His eyes scanned the room, meeting the eyes of each in turn. Alice held his gaze in a neutral and steady manner, and allowed him to break eye contact first. She nodded, having made her point. She noticed him having a similar battle of wills with the fierce red-haired girl, the one who spoke with the strange and unfamiliar accent. Again Cruces' gaze broke first and he looked away. Alice was interested to see he briefly shared a look with the dark Quirmian woman, but glanced away quickly. She read.. conspiracy? Embarrasment? Some sort of shared secret? Then she shrugged and put it away as _not immediately important_, choosing to listen to his words.

"The circumstances in which each of you inhumed have been investigated. In many cases you carried out the inhumation, despite your lack of formal training, with commendable qualities of skill, resource, discretion and style. Most of you are of good or reputable family. You therefore, in the eyes of the Guild, have the aptitude and background to rectify this earlier omission and qualify as licenced Assassins. As the guild does not approve of un-necessary or wasteful death, I am pleased you have all chosen the option of joining this Guild as mature candidates for full membership."

Alice wryly considered the single alternative, which would have entailed a fairly immediate necessary and purposeful death – looked around. Death probably hung over _everyone_ in this room. She would not be unique.

"You are to undergo, over the next a year, a greatly accelerated version of the training course which produces at its end a Licenced Assassin. As mature students, as people from good social backgrounds, you will of course have assimilated many of the social and life skills which we normally have to teach to pupils of school age, which attenuates the course somewhat for you.

"Not all of you will succeed. Some will fall by the wayside in various ways, and others will fall at the final hurdle of the Examination. But simply by being here, you have all tacitly agreed that this is the best of the available options. All that is necessary now is for you all to sign an affidavit to the intent that you are here of your own free will, and to agree that in the event of failure to complete the course, your next of kin will not be able to sue the Guild. Although, of course, compensation for loss of a parent will be paid by the Guild to children under eighteen, as we are not an uncaring organization.

"Some of you, in arriving in this room today, will have committed inhumations upon individuals for whom a Guild contract existed. This deprived a Guild member of the opportunity to earn a fee, which was another good reason for us to step in and detain you, and presents Mr Wimvoe the Guild Treasurer with a minor book-keeping problem. We are not an unfair organization. In those instances, the fee due will remain in abeyance until you have qualified as an Assassin. It will then be retrospectively paid to you – you will have more than earned it – the moment the situation is rectified and you have your Licence. Less, of course, tuition and accomodation fees. The rest of you, if you are not in a position to pay for the cost of the training you are about to undergo, will be offered a zero-interest student loan, redeemable against your first successful inhumations. Of course, some of you will go directly to the teaching faculty at the School to meet our perceived need for more specialist teachers, certainly for more female teachers. A similar _de facto_ loan will be redeemed against your salaries over the first few years of employment.

"All that remains for me to say is "Good Luck", ladies and gentlemen , and I look forward to meeting with you over the coming year – which will be one of hard dedicated work and commitment. Thank you."

Alice had caught the eye of the Quirmian woman sitting opposite. She was sure her own eyes were communicating something like "_Mes Dieux_!".

The Quirmian woman shrugged, and made an expressive gesture of sympathy.

_Welcome to Hell, _Alice had thought. _Bienvenue á l'Enfer. _

The dark-haired Quirmian woman smiled back. Alice wondered what she had done to end up here. There had also been a definite moment of embarrassed pretending-not-to-recognise-each-other between her and Downey. She also moved with confidence and familiarity, as if she knew the place. Alice, who like the others was still painfully finding her way around the Guild complex, had been struck by the confident way she had led the way around the building, from the rooms the four women candidates were to share back to the public areas of the Guild, without hesitating or needing to ask. She also seemed to know who was who in the heirarchy.

_We're sharing rooms, _Alice thought_. I'll ask her. Maybe she's just confident and the sort who settles in quickly as if they've been there all their life. Or maybe..._ a more sinister possibility occured to her. She reminded herself she was theorising with insufficient evidence, and put the thought from her mind.


	3. Joan's Story

_A third, minor, chapter rewrite to tidy up, expand slightly, and remove a few inconsistencies that eagle-eyed readers pointed out at the time. Thanks to Clodia and others. _

And today it was eight years further on, and she was in the well-guarded briefing room listening to Lord Downey explaining, for the benefit of those staff who have never invigilated a Finals before, how these things are done. She, Johanna, Joan and Emmanuelle were sitting together as a bloc, for unspoken mutual support. It is true the four women have had their differences, singly and collectively. But over time, and particularly during training, they discovered more to bond them rather than divide them. For one thing, each of the four began by feeling the weight of the unspoken prejudice that as women, they would never make it as Assassins. An unspoken collective agreement applied almost from Day One: whatever their personal differences, and there have been some along the way, they would make it and they would make it together. And at this point they were well aware the eyes of the long-time male teachers were upon them, and that the unspoken question was _Women teachers are all very well in a normal school. In this school, will they be able to take it when pupils they have become emotionally involved with over the last seven years inevitably fail the Finals, as a proportion of _everyone'_s pupils inevitably must? _

And tomorrow there will, for the very first time, be a graduation class of licenced female assassins on the streets of Ankh-Morpork. This moment has been eight years in the preparing. For the female teachers recruited eight long years ago, this is their first Finals. The four women knew they would be judged too, by their reactions. And tonight, for the first time at Finals, they had an active part to play.

"As with the candidates, who will begin their runs at nine tonight, there will be a draw for places on the two types of Run. As one is so much more popular than the other, this is the only fair way to assign staff to invigilate.

"If you would care to form an orderly line, you will each be pleased to draw a black or white ball from the jar. In this sealed envelope, I have a note that will explain what each colour represents. This was prepared blind – not even I know at the moment" Downey said, in his soothing voice.

The female teachers went up at intervals to collect their tokens. Alice felt its weight in her hand, but very purposefully didn't look at it until she resumed her seat.

She heard Emmie deliver a low and delighted chuckle. "Oh, Johanna. A shame for you! You have ze black ball. Did nobody tell them you are a White Howondalandian?"

Joan and Emmie looked at theirs. Both white.

"_Et toi_, Alice?" Emmie prompted her.

Alice opened her palm. Black. A plain stone ball, but with a number engraved on it.

"No doubt they'll tell us what it's for." Joan said, soberly. The oldest, and in her fifties the most unlikely, of the new teachers, crossed her legs primly. Joan Sanderson-Reeves did not, at first, look like an Assassin. This was a feature she had played upon to bring about one or two very satisfying licenced inhumations, since her graduation and receipt of her licence to practice. She looked like a staid middle-aged housewife of a certain social class, one with Standards to maintain, and a firm belief in the class system and her own place in it. It explains a lot that two of her closest friends outside the school are Mrs. Whitlow, the University's formidable housekeeper, and Miss Tripp** (1)**, a woman who is two promotions away from having achieved the same role at the Palace. But appearances deceived. Appearances had, in fact, deceived often enough for Joan to have clocked up an impressive number of annulments in a very specialized field of inhumation. This had brought her freelance practice to the attention of the Guild, and she had been offered the same choice as the others. She now taught Elocution, Etiquette, Deportment and Domestic Science.

* * *

In fact, she had already been working for the Guild for quite some time, but as an elocution and deportment teacher who ran classes from above a Klatchian grocer's store in Whirligig Alley. It had been the practice for the Guild to send her scholarship pupils who had unfortunate gutter Morporkian accents, or else who came from places like Llamedos and Hergen and Sto Kerrig and who could not, unfortunately, shake off their rustic manner of speech, for her to reform into people of _ton_ who could blend into polite society, as befits the Assassin.

And it all began… when? … twelve or thirteen years before. Joan Sanderson-Reeves, who by choice had never married (there _had _been a young man, a subaltern in Lord Rust's regiment, but he had not come back from one of Lord Snapcase's wars), and was making a steady, though not spectacular, living, teaching elocution and deportment to those whose general education had, quite unaccountably, missed out on such basic social skills. Like Alice Band, although from well before her time, she was a product of Miss Butts and miss Delcross at the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies, and still spoke fondly of the spinster teachers as her _mentors_ in all things fine and gracious. **(2)**

This income from the School had kept Joan in reasonable comfort for some years. She performed a valuable service, as she saw it: educating the sons and daughters of _arriviste_ families in the social skills and manner of speech which will help them blend in at the higher social level their enhanced prosperity now entitles them to move in. She wished, wryly, that she'd been able to get Patrician Snapcase into her classes and work on his grating, offensive to the genteel ear, manner of speaking.

But, all those years ago, there are some things a sister _knows_. Joan looked at the latest crop of cuts and bruises on Jenifer's face, and felt at once outraged and protective of her younger sister. Being _genteel_ is not the same thing as being _fluffy _and _ineffectual_: Joan challenged her sister outright, demanding to know when she'd drop this pretence of being clumsy, or falling over chairs, or walking into doors, when everybody knew it was _him_. But Jennifer maintained it was nothing of the kind, honestly, and Joan kept her peace, with an effort.

Until the day Jenny walked painfully into her sister's house, and burst into tears.

"I want him _dead_, Joan! Out of my life!"

"Now what on earth brought about this sudden change of mind?"

"I could cope when it was only me. But I've just come from Dr Lawn's. _He killed our baby_!"

Later on, Joan asked to see her occasional employer at the Guild School, Dr Cruces. He and Lady T'Malia received her in the office: as the only full time woman teacher at the School, Lady T'Malia acted as Joan's mentor and professional support.

"Miss. Sanderson-Reeves! Might I offer you my congratulations in the work you're doing with our Scholarship boys? You'd hardly believe young Skimmer came out of a gutter in Morpork! What can we do for you?"

Joan fixed her employer with a level eye, and asked how easy it would be to bring about an inhumation. She thought she could afford up to ten thousand dollars to make her sister into a widow who was free of an abusive husband.

As Joan explained the situation, Cruces and T'malia exchanged looks. Dr Cruces took a very deep breath.

"I'm so, so, sorry. I really wish we could help. But long-standing policy says that the Guild doesn't get involved in domestics. It isn't perceived as being a seemly reason to inhume. Perhaps if you came back to us with other reasons to see your brother in law annulled?"

T'Malia escorted her to the door.

"These things have a habit of working themselves out, my dear." she said. "Things may look radically different a couple of months further along. You'll see".

Later on, Joan was to realize there were already Guild contracts on her brother-in-law for more socially acceptable reasons, and T'Malia had been hinting at what for confidentiality reasons she couldn't say outright. But on that morning, Joan Sanderson-Reeves had passed through indignation, navigated a sea of rage, and was now anchored in the pool of calm that lies beyond. Ideas were forming in her head. Strange, unaccustomed, ideas, that only one who has worked at the Assassins' School as a part-time teacher might ever form. What the Guild was not willing to do, she'd do for herself.

Opportunity arose one Sunday that winter, as Joan was beginning to prepare lunch. She had pulled the food bag in from its position outside the window, where the cold had not only kept things fresh, it had actually deep-frozen them. While she was estimating how long it would take to cook a leg of lamb from frozen, _He _walked in, looking scornful.

"Get out of my house." she said, briskly. Jennifer was in hospital this time, at Dr Lawn's insistence. He sneered.

"I hear you disapprove of the way I manage my household."

"I have nothing to say to you. Get out."

" I also hear you attempted to get an Assassins' Guild contract on me. It doesn't work. They don't deal with petty domestic squabbles. Neither do the Watch!"

He turned his back on her, scornfully, menacing by his presence.

Joan actually _felt_ something go "ping" inside her head. She picked up the leg of lamb, thoughtfully, by the shank. And lifted it. He half-turned, but could not stop the blow descending… Joan screamed, and hit him twice more. The frozen meat was hardly dented, which was more than she could say for his skull.

She set to work with furious concentration, stepping round and over the corpse while she cooked lunch. And thought. She needed the right two Watchmen, and they tended to patrol her area a lot. But not yet…

After some hours had elapsed, she dishevelled her clothes and ran into the street, screaming "Murder!" She'd timed it right: the two Watchmen hastened their pace towards her.

"Now then, Mrs. Sanderson-Reeves?" said Sergeant Fred Colon, steadying her as she pretended to faint.

"Murder… my sister's husband… man… big club.. he ran out again…" she said, in good imitation of a traumatized woman.

"And by the way, Sergeant, it's _Miss_!" she firmly added, in a well-judged exclamation of social propriety.

Colon and Corporal Nobbs investigated the murder scene. They drew a chalk outline, covered the body, and waited for Dr Lawn to come and formally pronounce death and remove the corpse.

"Your brother-in-law. Mr "Ruthless Albert" Kettlering. It's no secret he had lots of enemies, ma'am. One of 'em must have followed him here… good afternoon, Dr Lawn!"

Mossy Lawn studied the corpse intently.

"Beats me why you chaps always have to draw a chalk outline."

"Traditional, sir!" Nobby said.

"Even the bunch of flowers and the false moustache? Hmm."

The doctor looked intently at Joan, holding her equally steady gaze back. He looked away. "Well, at least we know it was a man who did it. No woman could ever have swung a blunt instrument with enough force to inflict those sort of injuries!"

Joan could have sworn Mossy winked at her.

"I'll get him tagged and to the morgue. If Commander Vimes needs to make any further enquiries, he knows where to find me, although I'll stress in my report it's a case of fatal assault with a blunt weapon by person or persons unknown, presumed male. Oh, and his wif- _widow_ is a patient in my care. I'll break it to her. Good day, Miss. Sanderson-Reeves, gentlemen."

Lawn tipped his hat and left, nodding at Joan.

Joan took a deep breath. Now to tidy things up.

"Sergeant, Corporal. I invited Albert here for his lunch, what with my sister being in hospital. But it's going to waste now. As it's lunchtime, you must both be hungry?"

"Well, that's very kind of you, ma'am!" Sergeant Colon said.

"It's lamb. There's plenty of it. Dig deep!"

Contentedly, Joan served the two Watchmen as they proceeded to dispose of the murder weapon… her thoughts were racing.

_I got away with it!_ and _There must be other women in this city who need something more terminal than a divorce…if the Assassins think we're beneath their dignity to help_, somebody_ must do it for them, for all the other Jennifers out there…_

Jennifer gave her sister ten thousand dollars out of Alfred's estate. This endowed a cookery school, where at nights, after the last pupil had left, Joan would experiment and think. And receive discreet callers.

* * *

And now Joan was sitting with the three other women teachers, wondering what part she would play in tonight's events. She looked at Emmanuelle with wwhat the rest called her diamond-drill stare.

_Damn' gel kept her secret well. We really did think she was a spy they'd inserted to keep an eye on the rest of us. Just the sort of thing they would not be above doing. But you cannot help liking her. She's easy to like, damn the gel. _

* * *

**(1) **Miss Tripp is the senior housekeeper at the Palace who once a week braves all the traps, perils and pitfalls that guard the way to Leonard of Quirm's apartment so as to "do" for him. It is possible that in her quest to dust and clean and change soiled bedlinen, she scorns the sort of devices installed by the Patrician with great scorn, and could walk it through the Locks, Traps and Deadfalls module at the Assassins' School with 100%. Miss Tripp is a canonical character in _**The Last Hero. **_

**(2)** Alice Band also speaks of her former teachers at the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies as "mentors". More or less. She generally prefixes "mentors" with "tor", for good reason, as we shall see in a flashback later.

* * *

_**An afterword:**_ while writing this story, I knew it would be right for Joan to slay her unpleasant b-i-l with a deep-frozen leg of lamb. I also knew it would be howlingly appropriate for Fred Colon to come along afterwards and dispose of the murder weapon, so to speak, in Fred's usual inimitable way. I had an uneasy feeling I was rehashing an idea I'd heard somewhere else, but I knew somebody would be sure to tell me. Thanks, Clodia: I was of course re-hashing one of Roald Dahl's _Tales of the Unexpected_. Ah well. Call this a Discworld tribute to Roald... or maybe the inexorable work of Narrativium in the wider Multiverse.


	4. Miss Smith Rhodes: Johanna

_Another slight tidying and rewrite. _

Downey clapped his hands for quiet.

He opened the envelope.

"I'm reliably informed that in accordance with custom, the choice was made by one of the Guild's ancilliary staff. I believe this year, it was Topsy, in the laundry."

He looked at the paper in his hand.

"I am now pleased to be able to inform you that those who have drawn White…. get Over."

There were sighs of relief, together with anticipatory sighs and groans from old hands who had drawn a black.

"By default therefore, members of staff drawing Black will invigilate on Under routes."

Alice groaned. She was going to get her clothes dirty, a long way away from the fresh rooftop air, and then she'd need to be marinaded in a hot bath for a fortnight. Ah well, this was her punishment for dropping Jocasta Wiggs in the cess pit at Sam Vimes'… her heart plummeted.

_Jocasta will be doing the run tonight. She comes back as a licenced Assassin, or not at all. _

Alice tried to shake away the unthinkable. _I've been training her for this night for the last seven years. Either she's good enough or she isn't. _

Downey spoke again, quelling the murmured hubbub. .

"You will observe a number engraved on your stone. I will call them out in number order. Please come forward when you hear your number called and you will be given a sealed packet of instructions together with any last-minute additional verbal directions. Please sign for it with Mr Wimvoe." He paused, and called

"White – one!"

Mr Bradlifrudd, of Tree Frog House, went forward. Alice acclimatized herself for a long wait. She and Johanna Smith-Rhodes shared a long commiserating sigh.

_So we're in the shit, Alice! _Johanna mouthed, combining the mime with finger-code.

Alice laughed and signed back

_Poetic justice. That's exactly where they end up when I send them on the Vimes run!_

Johanna read her lips, and giggled. With her thick, demurely plaited red-gold hair, and heavily freckled pale skin, she looked hardly any older than many of the girls who would be taking Finals tonight. (_damn and blast her_, thought Alice), but was in fact twenty-nine. And anyone thinking this girlish red-haired beauty was no threat might discover that to be their penultimate thought, apart from a brief and fading sensation of "_Ow, that really hurt!" _

Johanna had been brought up in what she nostalgically referred to as "God's Own Country", Ankh-Morpork's former colony of Rimwards Howondaland. Severed from the Mother County by the ebbing of Empire, the settlers who had flocked to Howondaland had needed to learn to fight to hold their own. This had bred a battling warrior people, whose accent with time had diverged away from the Morporkian spoken in the central sea region. Many of the settlers, in fact, had been from Sto Kerrig and still spoke a version of the original Kerrigian tongue, which they called _Wondalaans. _In this tongue, Johanna and her people were the _Boortrekkies_, or _Boors_ for short.

They had pushed the limits of the white state up to the Ulungi and Blood rivers, then encountered the Kwa'Zulu confederation of black tribes. The Boors now had a New Best Enemy, and had spent over two hundred years in skirmish and cross-river raiding on a disputed border.

Life on that frontier, the Transvaal and Natal provinces of the Free State of Oranges, had meant _everyone _needed to know how to fight. By the age of twelve, the young Johanna was proficient in a dozen different weapons, from the deadly _sjaembok, _the rhinoceros-hide whip, to the assegai and knobkerrie of the enemy Kwa'Zulu.

Before thirteen, she had killed, in legitimate self-defence.

By nineteen, then doing her national service in the regular army, she had inhumed, taking the blood money offered by the Staadt and by the van der Rental family, after one branch of the clan had been wiped out in a Kwa'Zulu raid. The culprits had been an impi of the _N'Describibl _who had raided across the Ulungi for cattle and booty. They had been fought to the river by the local kommando, who in strict observance of the 1877 peace treaty had been unable to cross, and had to watch helplessly as the raiders retreated to their own side. To add to the humiliation, a late-sanctioned counter-raid was intercepted by Zulus, who had been waiting for such a thing, and killed to a man in a final last stand.

Johanna had reasoned that a smaller group of freelances could go where the regular militia couldn't. In any case, the anguished look on the face of old Hertz van der Rental**(1)** on seeing his dead son's ruined farmhouse would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Accepting the "Dead or Alive!" reward money on the head of the Kwa'Zulu war chief, she and three trusted associates had ridden into the heart of the enemy country, travelling light and by night.

A tropical thunderstorm gave her the diversion she needed. The gate guard of the kraal was hunched and hiding and anyway didn't expect intruders. This suited Johanna: a leap and a roll placed her over the outer wall, running un-heeded in the space between outer and inner wooden stake walls. Heavier equipment was passed to her by sure hands from the other side. She counted the yards between her entry point and the place she had recce'd earlier.

_Just about here, I think…_

She set the explosive charge, timing it to go off with the next thunderclap, then retreated to cover. The Agatean Fireclay drove a troll-sized hole through the inner wall and into the hut that adjoined it. Shaking the exlosion and slight concussion out of her head, she leapt in, counting the bodies. All dead. Then did what she needed to, both inside and outside the hut.

The brightest lightning flash of all illuminated an assegai, pushed stave-down into the earth. On the leaf blade was impaled the head of the war impi's leader.

But as the Kwa'Zulu sheltered from the wrath of the thunder gods, this would not be noticed for some time. Nor would the dark-clad slight figure slipping out of the main gate, dripping blood and rainwater, knowing her associates will have dealt with the gate guard. She was carrying an iconograph and a box of salamanders, documentary proof that she had killed the warlord who has been raiding the Staadt.

Her only order as her horse was brought up was a curt _Reidt_!

Two days later, with every ned for speed and none for stealth, pursued by Zulus who had by now worked it out, they reached the Ulunghi and the battle-famed former missionary station of Lawke's Drain, now a strong military outpost.

In Pratoria, the Staadtskapital, her exploit was the talk of the town and she received money, plaudits, and even offers of marriage, which she turned down, kindly. The government paid her a large cash bounty, but also noted, behind closed doors, that if the Smith-Rhodes family, formerly a power in the land and still quietly influential, had provided a national heroine, they might take it into their heads to try for political prestige again. This could be a _problem_…

The local bureau of the Guild of Assassins, which had been unsuccessfully been petitioning the _Volksraad_ for monopoly status in matters of inhumation, noted that this piece of freelance work had cost them a 50,000 rand contract. A report was prepared and sent to Filigree Street, where it is noted. The name of _Johanna Smith-Rhodes_ appeared on a list for the first time.

Dr Cruces tapped his teeth with the end of a quill pen, thoughtfully. Something will have to be done. He thought some more, then set quill to paper to write a long letter to the Howondaland bureau, who could negotiate with the Rimwards Howondaland government. If the girl could be lured to Ankh-Morpork and induced to remain, it would suit the interests of a _lot_ of people.

_"Indeed, please reassure the Staadtspraesident and the Bureau of State Security that their interests and ours converge in this matter and we will offer every assistance. "_

* * *

**(1)** I know. I just couldn't resist it.


	5. Emmanuelle: la Femme Fatale Quirmienne

_Starting to rewrite this story to account for Emmanuelle's recently discovered canonical history. It shouldn't take too many tweaks and it allows me to go back and revise. Amazing how many imperfections you find when you go back to a tale written over two years ago..._

"White, twenty-three!"

Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignarde les Deux-Epées stepped forward to collect her sealed instructions. The command sounded almost like a croupier dispassionately calling the number on a roulette wheel.

Emmanuelle? Observe. You will most assuredly see a wiry, graceful, woman in her early thirties who moves like a dancer. She has long black hair which hangs behind her head in a tight pony-tail. Her full-lipped face betrays an ancestry from further out than Quirm: it has a sultry hint of the Vieux river and the bull-running lands out towards Genua. She is beautiful, in a fiery dangerous way, and doesn't mind who notices. To her, beauty is another weapon in the Assassin's armoury, and unlike a sword, she knows only age will break it or take it from her hands. And she knows her swords and edged weapons: her father was a master armourer, and with her training in swordsmanship, she prides herself she can nurse a weapon every step of the way through from a raw lump of iron to the final killing thrust with the point. She teaches Bladed Weapons, Swordsmanship, and Metalwork.

She took her documents from _le pauvre_ Wimvoe, a man made old before his time by the demands of his unique and exacting office, whose nervous eccentricities are only relieved by the application of dried frog pills, (_les lozenges du grennouille sec_). Then Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignarde les Deux-Epées returned to her seat, and pondered on the twists in fate that had brought her back here.

Like Alice, Joan and Johanna, she had killed for money while not being a member of the Guild. She ought to have known better: it wasn't as if she did not already know the Guild's point of view on unlicenced inhumations for cash. She shook that particular set of memories out of her head – it wasn't the bad ones, they were easy to deal with. Too many of her memories of a particular time long past were nostalgic, painfully pleasant, reminders of long-lost innocence and adolescence. Having to revist them in these circumstances had taken more of an emotional toll than she had thought possible.

But _this_ had all began ten years previously. She knew she should not have taken that lover, a younger son of lesser Ankh-Morporkian nobility. He was too…clingy. Too emotional. He'd failed to understand the rules of the game. A liability. She still, after all, wished to succeed as Comptesse de Lapoignard, to the wealth and respectability of her husband's estates and title, and to do that she needed to keep her affaires most discreet, lest the _ancienne beldame_ found out and agitated again for divorce, this time with proof.

It had been at the _vignt-et-un_ tables at the casino, the one run by that diseased outcropping of an accursed mountain, Chrysophase. Emmanuelle had had a taste for the card tables at that time. And on that night, she'd lost over a hundred thousand dollars. The troll had granted her a week to find the money, and she had arrived at her suite in a foul mood to find him there, the poor maladjusted Morporkian boy who had failed to realize that sharing her bed did not mean sharing her life. Heavens, there was no shortage of acceptable bedmates, but her life remained her own, she was not going to sell it cheap to the Ankh-Morporkian concept of "marriage"!

She had tried to be gentle to him, but it had not worked. He was besotted, in the grips of a _fou d'amour_ that Morporkian men, normally repressed and buttoned down tightly, were unfortunately prone to. _When their reserve breaks, it breaks all the way_, she thought, trying to reason with his protestations of love and need and _I wish to marry you! I can conceive of living with nobody else but you! Why cannot you divorce him? _Still worse, he was trying to put it in Quirmian, the excruciatingly bad Quirmian spoken only by Morporkians, the heedless mangling of tense and gender and fine pronunciation that made her teeth ache.

Finally she had got angry at his insolent assumption of exclusivity and the implication that this cub of a boy, younger than she, knew best for both of them.

Oh, they had loved, eventually, but she had taken care to put him out of her bed afterwards and send him home to his mother. Despite his brattish petulance, she had put her foot firmly down and he had left, sulking.

She laid in bed, smoking a thin Sobranie cheroot, and furiously mused on her immediate future. Chrysophrase the Troll wanted a hundred thousand dollars from her. Dollars which, most incoveniently, she did not possess. She knew he could be persuaded to accept instalment payments at ruinous interest, but this still begged the issue of how she could meet even those. Go back to the tables and very carefully _not _pray for L… The Lady? Play for higher stakes still at the Gamblers' Guild, of which she was a member? _But with what collateral? _

Ask a rich lover to cover her debts? This went against everything she believed in, as well as leaving her beholden to the man, which her fierce independence revolted at.

And her mother-in-law, the foul old _biche,_ the Dowager Comptesse de Lapoignard, she who refused steadfastly to die, would rejoice at further proof of that peasant girl's liability and again press Maurice to divorce. There would be no help from that quarter, as _la vielle_ jealously guarded the family coffers while her son was in Klatch with _La Legion._

She remembered that towards the end of the night, the richly dressed woman who had been watching her thoughtfully had said _It looks as if you're in a bit of trouble, my dear. Come and see me and we can discuss a possible solution. _She had then been given a calling card. It had just said _Mrs. Rosemary Palm. Sheer Street._

Everyone knew what line of business Rosie Palm was in. Emmanuelle took a deep breath. She wasn't against what the Morporkians absurdly called _seamstressing _on moral grounds. And she could see the advantages in her current plight. She knew the Guild rigorously looked after the health and welfare of its working women, and that it took no more than 30% of each fee as its surcharge. She knew she could work as a high-class _courtesan_, a _fille du jour_, if she had to: the rates were good, and without false modesty, she knew the Guild would employ her only for special or high-status customers. Also, the protection of the Guild would count for something with that wretched troll, as not even he would risk the wrath of _les Tantes d'agonie, _the Guild enforcers. At, let us see, $AM 2,000 per assignation, less $AM600 to the Guild, leaves $AM1,400 for me.

_Mes dieux_, that's seventy-two _assignations_ before the Troll is paid off… and that's _seulement_ to pay off the Troll and meet his hundred thousand. Even before interest, and I still have to live… Mrs. Palm would have me for eternity, then. So call it a hundred and fifty _assignations_…. I could complete that in just over a year, if I live frugally, but I run the risk. At least some of the men are likely to be attractive, or intriguing, as well as rich.

And you know full well that if ever you make the mistake of trying to make a paying job out of something you love doing, it very quickly ceases to be something you love, and just becomes a job. _But what else is there_?

She fell asleep, still thrashing out the question, and awoke next morning with a heavy heart. It would seem that it had to be servitude to Rosie Palm, or the end of all things at the club-like paws of Chrysophrase's trolls. She washed, dressed and applied makeup with more than the usual care and steeled herself for the walk to Sheer Street. If done discreetly, she rationalised, her mother-in-law need not find out. She sincerely hoped so.

Outside, she knew she was being watched. There were many trolls going about their daily business, and each one of them was a pair of eyes for the Crime Lord of the Breccia. _Eh bien_, let them see me going into the Seamstresses' Guild, she decided, and went for what was to be quite a pleasant early-afternoon coffee with Rosie Palm. More pleasant than she'd expected.

In a surprisingly chintzy parlour, Mrs. Palm had expressed _delight_ and _gratification_ that Emmanuelle had been _sensible_ enough to come and see her so quickly.

_Tu prends du thé? Du café? Ah oui. Du café au lait? Ou crème? _

She wasn't surprised that Mrs. Palm spoke good Quirmian. At some point in her past, she'd made the effort to improve herself by learning. She supposed it must come with the profession.

"I've always considered that the received wisdom of doubling your bets until your fortunes turn is a risky strategy." Rosie said, conversationally. "It works, and spectacularly so, if your fortunes change for the better and you keep your nerve before you run out of stake money, as I saw you do last night. But if a certain deity is disposed to behave like _une chienne et une biche au yeux verts _and your losing run goes on longer than the money you have available to bet with, then you end up with a lapful of woes."

She smiled, sympathetically. "_Mais, c'est la vie_. But we may be able to help a lady in your circumstances, if the lady is worldly-wise and broad minded. Are you married?"

"Yes. To Colonel Lapoignard of the Klatchian Foreign Legion. He is away at his command for ten months of the year."

"That makes it easier for us, my dear. You have, perhaps, what is known as a Quirmian Marriage?"

"If by that you mean I am an absolutely loyal and faithful wife to my husband for the two months of the year we are together, and he an absolutely loyal and faithful husband to me for those two months, then yes, we have a happy marriage where both parties do everything society expects of them, and they of each other."

"But for the other ten months?" Rosie probed.

"I am a normal healthy female with the usual drives and dispositions. And I suspect he has more than a passing interest in nautch-girls, and perhaps even their brothers, who are abundantly available in Al-Khali and Gebra. What do you think?"

"Does this worry you?"

"Not at all! I understand he needs release after being cooped up in desert postings for months at a time. And the unique nature of his command makes it very easy for him to… forget… my discreet liaisons. We have, I think, a good marriage."

Rosie laughed.

"I like you more and more! Now. To business. You have a predicament where you owe a very nasty troll a large amount of money. This is a very nasty troll who has become nastier by studying human nastiness. He might not kill you if you default on this debt. Nothing so direct and troll-like. But you are aware engravers use very potent acids to etch a negative impression onto a metal plate? Trolls also use these acids to etch the equivalent of tattoos into their hides. Right now, a troll in the City Watch is so pleased to have been promoted sergeant that he had the stripes of rank etched into his living arms with these acids."

She studied Emmanuelle's face carefully. "A race that can inflict that degree of discomfort on itself will not think twice before using similar acids to, shall we say, radically re-arrange your unique beauty. Chrysophrase might consider it ample retribution for failure to show him respect, by neglecting to pay him the money owing."

Emmanuelle blanched. Rosie smiled, serenely.

"But we can help. A woman as beautiful and as worldly-wise as you would _not _be a common streetwalker priced at twenty-five to fifty dollars for an all-inclusive service. You are witty, intelligent, travelled, a lady of class. A lady of distinction, in fact. I would have no hesitation in placing you on a _special_ list available only to Guild clients of taste and refinement. At the same time that you are accepted into the Guild, we would of course send a polite, and above all _respectful_, note to Mr Chrysophrase advising him of the fact you are a Guild member and under our protection. We might also suggest to him that by your consent, we have taken over and are managing your debt, and negotiate a settlement favourable to all parties. He will listen. He is not by any means a stupid troll."

Emmanuelle saw the logic of this. The way out of her predicament now seemed clearer.

"We would not ask you to do anything you find distasteful or against your nature. What is your attitude on, for instance, Ephebian Island lifestyles?"

Emmmanuelle looked blank for an instant. Rosie tried another euphemism.

"Sapphic practices. _L'amour entre des filles_."

"I've dabbled. But it is not really to my taste. A small but significant something is…missing."

Rosie laughed. "A shame. Or you could have gone onto a _really_ special list we direct to female clients of the Guild who are of, shall we say, refined tastes. I can never get enough ladies onto that list, which is a shame, as it commands _really_ premium prices. Supply and demand, you see. Ah well, let me know if you change your mind!"

"And the…. professional fees… involved?" Emmanuelle hazarded.

"What do you think?" Rosie asked, kindly.

"I'm new to all this…. I thought, _peut-être,_ two thousand dollars for each _assignation_?"

Rosie laughed, but not unkindly so. For a moment, Emmanuelle wondered if she'd over-rated her own commercial worth.

"Now this is why there's a Guild! I find it depressing how such a capable woman as yourself can undervalue her earning power. My dear, for you, they would pay _five_ thousand for an evening. And that is only an opening gambit, even before we discuss optional extras!"

They had gone on to discuss options, contracts and working patterns. Emmanuelle had seen and met _seamstresses _before, but had never really stopped to ask about the intimate financial details of their lives. Therefore a new world opened to her, and she was both intrigued and enchanted by it.

Just being an escort for an evening – "sometimes that's _all_ a man wants, an attractive and socially skilled lady, so that he doesn't look out of place on those awkward social occasions that call for the attendance of Mr John Smith and _one other_." - was worth a minimum of five hundred dollars. "We have a list of ladies who work part-time for the Guild providing escort services. I am aware many of them, interestingly enough, stipulate that they are for escort _only_ and not available for other commercial transactions. So I am in the interesting position of employing seamstresses who do not sew, which is quite ironic! This suits the men, who are often genuinely only looking for a social escort, and we provide a valuable service. Should an escort or paid companion and the client make a mutual decision that they would like to take their understanding a step further, a scale of charges will apply. It is then up to you to price out the evening, or the night's, entertainment, and make out a properly calculated invoice for services, from which the Guild will take around 30% as an introduction fee. We _do_ expect honesty and accounting integrity in these things as a matter of course. You have met the Aunts? I'll introduce you before you leave.

"You may work as many or as few hours a week for the Guild as you choose, although we strongly advise against more than four full nights per week. You need time off to recharge yourself and it is possible to abuse your body and mind. This shows in deterioration of personal presentation and deportment, which can damage the reputation of the Guild. I also counsel against what I call the dollar syndrome, where a working girl becomes so greedy for money that her performance and her reputation suffer. She becomes so keen to make money that she can barely finish one client fast enough before moving on to the next. Again, this causes an otherwise useful girl to burn out like a cheap candle, and detracts from the good name of the Guild.

Here is a sample scale of fees a lady on your scale might expect to charge."

Emmannuelle scrutinized it. _Damn these Morporkians and their strange attitude to sex! Even the brothelmistress speaks in euphemism! _

"Madame. What is this _playing the pink piccolo?"_**(1)**

Rosie told her in blunt Morpokian. Emmanuelle burst out laughing.

"By this, I should already be ze millionaire!" she remarked, as she read the list.

"Well, that's what comes of giving it away for free all your life." Rosie said, mildly.

"And… there are two separate kinds of "_le vice Morporkien_" listed here. One is more expensive than the other?"

"It appeals to alumni of our older-established male schools, I'm told." Rosie said. "At Hugglestones, at the Assassins' Guild School and most certainly at Thrashers' Academy, I'm reliably told a certain type of boy can get a taste for both kinds of the vice. One is more expensive than the other simply because it puts you to a certain discomfort. In adulthood, he wishes to recreate the peak experiences of his schooldays, perhaps this time with a woman. So he comes to us. We aim to satisfy. Very scrupulously and accurately, if and when required!"

Emmanuelle still looked puzzled. Rosie again resorted to blunter language. "We can provide old sailors with the three staples of Navy life. Rum is on offer publicly in the bar. We prefer sodomy and the lash to take place privately upstairs."

Emmanuelle was not easily shockable, but her mouth fell open at the realization of what the two Morporkian Vices were and why one should put the Seamstress at more personal discomfort than the other, and was therefore charged at a premium.

"We do these things with so much more…. maturity…. In Quirm…" she said, weakly.

"Yes. And our sister Guild there does so much less business!" Rosie Palm said, practically. She stood up. "Let me show you around!"

Emmanuelle registered the glow and the buzz of a happy workplace, populated by women who loved their work and who received respect and consideration. She was introduced to the Aunts, two dapper old ladies who welcomed her warmly whilst memorizing her face for possible attention later.

"They're a sort of universal Auntie to the girls." Rosie explained. "They're veteran Guild members who came up through the ranks and still have a very valued job to do in senior years, when virtually all the girls they started out with have married or retired. "Aunt" is a honorific, really. Postholders come and go, but there's always been a Dotsie or a Sadie coming up the ranks."

Rosie apologetically raised the subject of, errm, occupational disease. Any incidences? Please don't take this the wrong way, but everyone has to be checked out. Everyone. Even me. Our retained physician Doctor Lawn, an old friend of the Guild, did you know he's a honorary member? He's here in three days' time to perform the usual checks. Can you be here then? Then we can start you out gently. It's been a pleasure, Madame Lapoignard!"

* * *

Three days later, she swung her legs off the examining table, in numb disbelief.

"I have WHAT!" she screamed.

"I'm so sorry, madame Lapoignard." the doctor said, calmingly. "It's only a minor infection. I can prescribe you a salve that will clear things up inside a month."

She felt dirty and ashamed. Oh, she'd noticed a little itch, but in Ankh-Morpork in summer she'd just felt grateful that it wasn't a great big itch, and anyway, there's been no rash.

"I don't have a month!" she raged, as the shadow of Chrysoprase loomed up in front of her.

Rosie Palm looked concerned.

Doctor Lawn was speaking again: something about the delicacy of the situation means you should speak to your last sexual partner and advise him he is also likely to be infected. But an episode of pubic lice can be cleared up quickly and simply. It's by no means the worst STD. Shave the affected area, for efficacy, and apply this salve daily…

_That accursed boy! If a man sleeps with me, he should be clean!_

"I'm so very sorry, Emmanuelle." Rosie said. There was genuine regret in her voice. "I'm going to have to defer your entry to the Guild until you can come back to Doctor Lawn and demonstrate you're clear of infection. You can see my point of view, can't you? But I do want you, and I do believe you have a future in the Guild. It's just not _now_."

She dressed, numbly, and then she was out in Sheer Street again, walking the long way round towards Filigree Street, shaking her head in disbelief at the absurd, surrealist, aspect of the Fools' Guild. _A Quirmian founded it, _she reminded herself. _Yes, but the Morporkians debased a fine Quirmian tradition. Mes Diuex, the apogee of clowning is the mime artist, a Quirmian invention, and they actually _**ban**_ it here! _

Lost in though, she didn't register the trolls until they blocked her way. One raised a grimy lichen-encrusted hand.

"You have an interview wid Mister Chrysoprase!" it rumbled.

_The day just gets better and better_, she thought. She went along. There wasn't an alternative.

* * *

**(1) **Taken from an actual prostitute's menu of services, circa 1690. "Rum , Sodomy and the Lash" were a coinage of Winston Churchill, who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, should have known, when asked what were the deepest and most sacred traditions of the British Royal Navy.


	6. Alice Band's Story

_Another re-editing of a two year old story._

"Black, twenty-seven!"

At last, Alice's particular assignment. She took the large oilskin-sealed packet and signed Wimvoe's list, then returned to her seat with a sinking feeling. It contained a clipboard, two of the new Leonard of Quirm designed _write-anywhere! _LEQU pens**(1)**, and several sealed, labelled, packets of papers. One was labelled ON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION and the instruction was _Sign pink top copy and give to successful candidate. Remind them you are not allowed to discuss any aspect of the test, but at this point modest and seemly congratulations may be in order. Retain white bottom copy for Guild files. _

Another packet was labelled IF THE CANDIDATE IS SERIOUSLY LATE FOR A CHECKPOINT IN YOUR SECTOR:-

She opened this. The top sheet was a list of instructions.

_This is not a timed test. Speed and punctuality are desirable, of course, but haste makes for errors._

_The desired objective is that the Candidate completes the test, not that they complete it in the fastest time._

_The timings you have been given for encounters with Candidates in your sector are therefore approximate, but have been deemed reasonable for a Candidate undergoing the Test along that vector._

_You may be required to monitor the progress of Candidates through your sector at more than one different location. You will therefore need to move swiftly, frequently and silently between these points. One hour will be allowed for you to familiarize yourself. _

_A Candidate may not move on until an invigilator has ascertained their identity and completed all relevant paperwork at that checkpoint. You may return from dealing with one Candidate in a sub-sector for which you are responsible, to find one or more waiting for you at a different sub-sector point._

_Be vigilant! You know there is a School rumour that a Candidate who manages to inhume their examiner has passed the test on the spot. However we seek to squash this erroneous perception, it still recurs annually, like a weed. Be alert for attempts on your person. Should a Candidate make an overt move, you are fully entitled to employ any or all means of self-defence and are to award a FAIL grade. _

_Should a Candidate be more that 45 minutes late at your checkpoint, you are to fill in the attached form. (Candidate Absence Report) You may assume the Candidate has been awarded a FAIL grade at an earlier point on the Test._

_Do not under any circumstances interrupt the smooth flow of the Test to search for a delayed Candidate or to look for evidence of their having Failed themselves. You are not to concern yourself with this administrative detail, as dedicated follow-up squads will check the various vectors on the following day, and if possible recover tangible evidence. _

_You are to return to Filigree Street no later than seven in the morning. You are to hand in all completed paperwork at the Examinations Office, and be prepared to make a full report on any candidates to whom you have been forced to issue a FAIL grade. _

Alice read on.

_Your Emergency Drop is located at…. This point will be monitored from time to time, although not by you, for evidence of over-confidence._

_The __**Vivat Voce:- **__you are to ask each Candidate three questions, the answers to which are drawn from the Concordat. Two correct answers is an acceptable pass mark. Mark each Candidate's sheet with ticks or crosses as indicated for collation later. Remember a Candidate passes or fails on the evidence of their practical work, and may not be failed by you on the basis of the Vivat. Your question sheets are attached. These have been worked out to allow each Candidate a full and fair examination along the course of their Test and may not be amended or substituted by you. However, it is permissible to put a Candidate under pressure by asking an unexpected supplementary question which you may devise yourself. It is not permissible to discuss the results of the Vivat with the Candidate. _

Alice sighed and replaced the paperwork into the waterproof pouch. The list of pupils who would pass through her sector wasn't known yet: this was still being decided, by lottery, in the Great Hall. She hoped they'd all be from other Houses, or mainly boys, rather than her own girls. It would feel easier that way.

But all that was known at the moment, and indeed had been meticuluously planned, was that Candidate X would at four approximately-timed points on their Run encounter members of teaching staff A,B,C, and finally D, who would administer the final test of all. Alice was not listed to oversee any of the the final inhumations. She wondered what form it would take this time - the thing with the dummy under the blanket was just too well known - and shuddered, thinking back to the surprise that had awaited her at the culmination of her Run as an adult entrant. That had added horror to stress and pumping adrenaline.

Seeking to calm herself, old memories surfaced, unbidden. Her mind went back and reflected on events of nearly ten years previously.

She had had a disastrous and somewhat embarrassing archaeological field trip to Lancre. This had included a nasty brush with Elves, being flung into a river by NacMacFeegle who had strenuously objected to her excavating in their mound, and worst of all, incurring the suspicion of the Lancre Witches. Whilst being soaked to the skin by the Feegle had earned her Nanny Ogg's sympathy and tickled her sense of humour, Alice had felt it was best to cut her losses, and she spent what was left of the summer in Borogravia, dodging a war in the service of archaeology, and, once deported, in Überwald. The words of the _other _witch, the truly frightening one, still echoed in her memory: _You will become an Assassin and be welcomed into their family. But there's still more good than wickedness in you, girl. _

And, she recalled, the Queen of the Elves had also said as much.**(2)** But the Guild only recruited _men_, didn't it? Her Assassin brother had said as much. A puzzle. But she'd heard Granny Weatherwax, when she cared to make a prediction to somebody for the good of their soul, was never wrong.

In Überwald, ,whilst excavating in what might have been the earliest proto-Vampire settlement, an Iron Age hill fort showing clear signs of vampire habitation, desperate villagers mistook the practically black-clad archaeologist for an Assassin, and begged her to take away the curse that was Compte Guiles de Rhais.**(3)**

She listened to them, and her face set in grim serious lines. As de Rhais was definitely not a nice man and was known to have abducted village children from miles around to serve nameless pleasures, she knew what she has to do. Vampires are one thing: a psychopathic human with a blood lust is quite another.

The village people were proud. They might be poor, but they had in their eyes engaged an Assassin, and honour insists that she must be paid.

Although she would have done this job for nothing, Alice reluctantly accepted a token $40 – all the villagers were able to raise – and settled down to watch and observe and make plans. On a night where two other children went missing, she silently entered the castle, using all her skills in Stealth Archaeology. She made her way to the gallery above the great hall, and from hence, undetected, to the chandelier looking down on De Rhais, two missing children, and acolytes of a death cult who were drawing a magick pentagram.

As the chandelier rotated on its chain, she unshouldered the Hublandish double-recurved short hunting bow she carried, and methodically started to shoot dead the thirteen members of the dark coven. She had no pity and no hesitation about her actions: creatures like this should not be allowed to live. De Rhais began to intone a curse; she shot him through the throat, and as an afterthought, again in the chest. Then she collected the terrified children, and escaped, pausing only to set fires as she left.

The castle was purified by fire as they galloped back to the village. Alice sighed: the $40 would barely replace the arrows she had expended. Had it been worth it?

A month or two later she was in Ankh-Morpork. An advantage of her father having been a bishop in the Ionian faith is that she could always stay with the man she knew as Uncle Hughnon, who always had a spare room waiting for her in the Chief Priest's Palace. Her father and Hughnon Ridcully were old friends, and latterly rivals for the Chief Priest's position.

One night she awakened abruptly from sleep. There were two dark shrouded figures in her room.

"You have an appointment with the Master." one said.

She nods: she knew this was coming. Out of courtesy, the Assassin escort turned its back as she dressed.

She considered killing them and fleeing, but there was no point: the Guild would only send others. And they would be angry.

"I am ready. Escort me, gentlemen".

She was taken to the Assassins' Guild on Filigree Street, a building complex she will come to know very well. Tonight, it is new and unfamiliar to her: her escort led her up several flights of stairs and knock on an office door. Alice is invited to sit in front of a desk. She sensed other people in the room: the escort who brought her are standing guard at the door. The three important people are on the other side of the desk, one centrally behind it, the two others sitting deferentially to right and left. The desk was positioned in the centre of the office, with a stone pillar rising at each corner.

"Miss Band? Do please be seated. I am Dr Cruces, Master of the Guild. My associates here are Doctor Downey and Lady T'malia."

Alice nodded: a gentle-faced man who could have been a clergyman, and a woman who she instinctively knew was not to be written off as an empty-headed aristocratic bimbo. And Alice knew her clergymen: the most gentle-faced could be the most ruthless, ambitious and callous.

"You caused this Guild a certain… inconvenience, Miss Band" Cruces remarked, pleasantly. "You have recently inhumed thirteen people. Of whom eleven had current Guild contracts on their heads. This has caused a certain amount of irritation on the part of Guild members who have seen a large amount of money disappear, owing to the actions of an admittedly gifted, but all the same, non-Guild, freelance practitioner. And I believe you did what you did for…. forty dollars? Remarkable!"

"Would you rather I had let them live?" Alice asked. "They tortured and murdered children. For fun."

Cruces shrugged, as if the distasteful but all the same, private, peccadilloes of the nobility did not concern him, at least not until they became cause for opening a contract.

"It occurs to me that the problem you present could be resolved by not letting you live." He said. "Tell me why I should do otherwise."

Knowing she was arguing for her life, Alice thought quickly. She wasn't going to beg, that was for sure.

"You've gone to a lot more trouble than merely killing me would have needed. Because if you simply wanted me dead, the two gentlemen who escorted me here could just as easily have killed me then, rather than politely waiting for me to wake up. Perhaps you find me interesting. Perhaps you might be considering other uses for me."

Cruces nodded. A ghost of a smile played at his mouth. Lady T'malia spoke.

"We've found out what we can about you, my dear." she said. "You come from good family. You have talents. You have integrity. And like Doctor Cruces, I don't believe in needless killing either. So wasteful, for one thing!"

T'Malia ticked the points off on her fingers, but very carefully. Alice noted the rings, and the suspicion grew that they were not just there for ornament.

"You got into that castle where so far, five Assassins had failed. That presumes native ability. You disabled the guards rather than killed them. You inhumed only those for whom you were contracted. You did it with style. The only thing you lack is that you are not, officially at least, one of us. That can be rectified."

Downey offered drinks. He decanted sherry into three glasses, from which he, Cruces and T'malia all ostentatiously drank.

"I'm sorry, Miss Band. I forget my manners. A drink?" He produced a fourth glass. Alice stepped forward to the desk, picked up the offered glass, and ran her finger round the inside. She inspected the fingertip of her black glove and noticed the crystalline white powder, glittering in the candlelight.

"Not from _this_ glass, my Lord!"

The three senior Assassins looked at each other and nodded: Alice wondered if she'd just passed some twisted test.

Cruces spoke again. "I have a proposition for you, Miss Band. In a year's time, the Assassins' School goes co-educational and will admit girl pupils. We're having trouble in attracting suitable female members of teaching staff. I safely believe I speak for the interview panel here in that we believe you would be a sterling recruit for the staff. You have relevant skills, you have inhumed, and you have the nerve and good sense to refuse a drink from Doctor Downey. You can also think well under pressure. Will you join us? And I fully expect that in the next year, you will, as a mature entrant, train and learn hard so as to pass the Black Syllabus, which then entitles you to full Assassin status." He paused, and added: "The alternative is, of course, death".

Alice accepted. What else could she do? She read and signed the offered papers, and the three senior Assassins welcomed her to the Guild family.

"Our associates will escort you back to the Chief Priest's Palace, if you so wish." Cruces said, pleasantly. "You will be contacted. Oh, and Miss Band? You were quite wise to refuse the offer of a drink."

Downey theatrically wiped a finger inside the wine glass Alice had refused, picking up a coating of the white crystals. He raised his finger to his mouth and licked it, then smiled at her.

"Common sugar." said Cruces. "It would have given a good sherry an unpleasantly sickly aftertaste".

Alice joined in the laughter, although in a hollow and unconvincing way.

* * *

And now Alice was facing her biggest test since graduating... she looked round to Emmanuelle and Joan and Johanna, who had become her friends, and to two late arrivals, Doctor Davinia Bellamy**(4)** (Botany) and Gillian Lansbury (Art), who were products of a later Mature Students' Class. She knew both to be sound people and capable Assassins, who had undergone the same training and ordeals as she had. She would not count either as close friends in the same way, but she liked both. In the company of five other women teachers, she felt a little easier about the night to come.

* * *

**(1)**Think BIRO, but designed by LEonard of QUirm.

**(2) **See my story_** The Lancre Caper, **_in which a young graduate archaeologist who is yet to become an Assassin suffers from over-confidence and learns exactly why archaeology is not popular in Lancre.

**(3)** Based on Roundworld mass-murderer Compte Giles de Rais, a man who fought alongside Joan of Arc, who got a taste for blood and sadistic killing, and is reputed to have returned to his estate in Brittany and slain five hundred peasant children. He was so blatant about this that he was taken to court and found guilty by his peers, even of the murder of peasants…. The fact he nearly precipitated a Peasants' Revolt might have had to do with their decision to execute him.

**(4) **see my story _**Murder most 'Orrible**_. Davinia also has a cameo in **_The Discworld Tarot, _**which also introduces Gillian Lansbury and the circumstances of her joining the Guild. (Who also appears in _**Whys and Weres**_).


	7. Take your positions

And now, she is dressing for the occasion, having been informed that her invigilation beat is a strategic section of the Cloaca Maxima, the main sewer long lost to the rest of the city, but whose existence has been known only to Assassins for getting on for a thousand years.

_All other professional and leisure users of the Cloaca have been requested to stay away for the night_, she remembers reading. This involved the Guild of Thieves, the Guild of Plumbers and Dunnikin Divers, and Mr Harry King's trade operatives. _We wish to remain on good terms with Mr King, as it is likely he will be given the management of the Cloaca if it re-opens for business. It is too indispensable as a quick means of getting around the city unseen. Leisure users, such as the City's new Extreme Sports Society, have also been asked to refrain from edificeering and drainholing tonight. Please discourage any Society members you may encounter, but try not to use lethal force, however tempting. Be diplomatic. _

Over warm silk thermal underwear, Alice elected for body-hugging skin tight leather. At room temperature she'd sweat like a hog, but down there in the sewer it was going to be cooler. And it was also waterproof, and washable – all she'd need to do afterwards is have a fire-hose pointed at her. Let's see. Zlobenian-style foot-cloths rather than socks – so much more practical in tight boots. The skintight flexible leather boots with external pockets and sheaths, with the special edificeering soles. As she'd told her pupils, drainholing was _exactly_ like edificeering, only in the opposite direction. (_Gods, I wish you'd given me a white ball_!) Alice preferred the heights, the sky, the open air, the Over routes: but tonight had given her Under, the manholes, the drains, the sewers, the whole lost Ankh-Morpork underneath the current Ankh-Morpork. Once you were over the smell, it had a certain charm to it, and she _was _an archaeologist, after all…

Alice added a few more pieces of equipment, ensured the official paperwork was in a watertight and weatherproof pack secured to her hip, then checked the look of her hat and cloak in the full-length mirror. Her purple teaching sash showed up a paler streak against the black. She nodded, then left her room.

Junior school pupils looked at her with awe and respect. Alice curtly bade them back to their rooms and dorms, NOW, and get on with your Prep. Some of the male pupils looked at her with eyes that suggested their bedsheets would be contaminated by morning. She wryly remembered the Guild laundress, Washable Topsy, joking that it seemed right that so many poltergeist incidents happened around young boys – judging by all the ectoplasm we get to see on their bedsheets! This had convulsed the washerwomen having their cigarette break in the alley, and one lady Assassin had laughed too. It came with the turf that she was a masturbation fantasy for pubescent boys: she'd discussed this aspect of pastoral practice with Emmanuelle and Johanna, and the response had been to say nothing and pretend ignorance. ("Mes Dieux! It's a compliment, after all! Why begrudge them?" and Joan Sanderson had wryly added: "When you STOP being a fantasy for the boys, you know you've grown old. You'll all miss it when it stops!")1

Alice swept her cloak around her to permit a better view of her in the skin-tight leathers. She was not an unfair woman, and anyway, if some of the _girls_ were also tempted to night fantasies of a physical sort about their teacher in body-hugging leathers, then, from her point of view, so much the better.

She briefly spoke to the lower-sixth prefects and Captain of Year, who would be supervising Tump House that night in the absence of the teaching staff. They would keep order, ensure the various Years went to bed at the appropriate times, patrol discreetly until midnight, and finally do a head-count in the dorms: any missing pupils, not that she expected them on this night, were to be reported to the Porters' Lodge, as per procedure, and she'd expect some sort of written report on her desk in the morning. Good luck, they have been told you have the authority of teaching staff for the night, any serious disobedience you cannot deal with, take names and report it to me. Thank you.

And then, by discreet stairways and passages, to the Assembly Point for Under-runners.

Grune Di Nivor, a fat, jolly man loved by the pupils and respected by his colleagues, greeted her affably.

"Glad to have you, Alice! First timer on Finals? You'll feel so much better when it's over!"

Alice nodded. It had been a decision made back then, when the first intake of first-year girls had been received, to allow the female teachers to rise up the school with them and mature alongside successive years of female pupils, until those first eleven-year-olds had become the Upper Sixth who were now about to Graduate. For the previous few years, Alice had opted to take a few days' leave about this time rather than hang uselessly about the Guild. That first year had been depressing – excluded from participating in Finals and having the time and leisure to hear all the rumours as they came in, along with the reality the next day, and the empty seats in the Hall for dinner that night.

"I see you're suitably dressed for the occasion!" Nivor added. "You and Johanna both."

Johanna Smith-Rhodes had also adopted the practical skin-tight leather look, her red-gold hair bound up under her hat.

Grouped in the lowest cellar room – at least, the lowest official cellar room – the group of teachers awaited the signal to move off. Nivor, affably, said:

"A word or two of advice, ladies. This is my thirtieth year. You lose a lot of illusions by then. Some jolly surprising people will qualify, ones you privately think never had it in them, or were cert Fails. And some surprising people will Fail, including ones you're fond of or might think of as favourites. You will grieve in the morning. I have. Everyone in this room has. But the drill is to express it privately. Tomorrow morning there'll be parents, families, friends, waiting at the gate. You will be expected to speak to them, whatever the outcome. That requires self-control and self-discipline. I know you've got it and you won't fail the Guild. Have you collected your rats, by the way?"

"Rats?" Alice was taken aback.

"Messenger rats. For emergencies. They'll return to the Palace with messages. The Dark Clerks there – old Guild boys, naturally – will act on the message. Kind permission of Vetinari. He keeps an eye on Finals night, by the way – old boy, friend of the Guild. Not sure what was said, but he had heated words with Downey last week about exam procedure. Some things might not be all they seem this year". Nivor paused.

"Anyway, just do the job which is ahead of you to the best of your not inconsiderable abilities. Remember – we are being monitored too. And don't think for one second you're alone down there!"

Nivor loaded both women with small closed cages in which things could be felt to scamper and chitter. Alice felt her skin go clammy and repulsed a shudder as the older man secured the carrying straps, with a tuneless whistle.

"Black – three!" a voice called. An Assassin stepped forward and was shown to a trapdoor.

"Black – four!" Another Assassin was directed to a door in the far wall, and silently disappeared.

"Ah – we're off, then!" Nivor said. "I'd have preferred the rooftops, but luck of the draw, and all that!"

He left on the call !"Black – seventeen", moving with surprising grace for a man of his bulk and years. And then it was Johanna's call. The two women clasped hands briefly, and then they were off.

Two numbers down from Johanna, Alice was vectored through the same trapdoor, and followed the chalked marks at intervals, always a number and an arrow: she followed the 27's deeper down into the bowels of the city, until a pretty final "27" was seen above an arrow pointing straight down. In fact, a clutch of numbers came together here, all in the twenties. She wasn't surprised to find Johanna waiting for her.

"We might es well trevel together. Our checkpoints are edjacent."

The sound of rushing almost-water had grown louder and nearer. Johanna and Alice co-operated in lifting the large, heavy, cast-iron cover. It moved with surprising ease on recently-oiled hinges, both women noted quietly.

Alice scanned with a discreet lamp. It didn't penetrate the gloom very far. But it did illuminate an iron-runged ladder going down into the darkness. She took a deep breath, and lowered herself into the Stygian.

_What if a Traps Team have been here and weakened this ladder as somebody's Emergency Drop? _A sane part of her gibbered.

She took control, and carried on descending. A rattling above her told her Johanna was following, swinging the cover back into place as she climbed. Alice, ever-wary for a missing rung or the first signs of the cast-iron failing, not to mention other perils such as Slippall or a poison dart placed just where her questing fingers would find it, moved quickly and surely.

"They wouldn't trep this one, Ellice. It's meant for us, not for the Cendidettes!" Johanna called, reassuringly.

Alice counted rungs. After a hundred and seventy-one, her feet touched firm ground. Eyes now accustomed to the dark and aided by the mandatory patches of luminous fungus always found in dark tunnels, she saw they were on a wide stone walkway, that was still forty feet or so above the almost-water of the Ankh that was flushing through the Cloaca. The archaeologist in her took over.

_Of course. This would have been a service path, an engineer's walkway. _

She knelt, and her fingertips brushed the ground and the edge.

_Post-hole. There would have been a security barrier here once, but it rotted away. _

"Let's go!" Johanna called. Alice followed, and they ran to take their stations. Suddenly Johanna paused, raising a warning hand. Alice, coming up next to her, could see why. For about twenty yards in front of them, the walkway had crumbled into the Great Sewer, leaving a void. The wooden bridging sections that would have spanned the gap had been dismantled and stacked neatly on the other side.

"Somebody's Emergency Drop." Alice remarked, drily. They looked down. The turgid waters were lapping against the side of the breach. "I bet the spilled masonry is only a few feet underneath that." _So even if the stench doesn't get you, the shock of falling forty feet doesn't do for you, you might still break both legs on the rubble just under the surface and end up drowning. _

"But people have been this way before" Johanna pointed out.

Edificeering ropes and pitons had been hammered into the wall so that, with care, the gap might be climbed.

Suspiciously _new_-looking pitons and edificeering ropes, in among older ones which looked ragged and rusty.

Alice looked at Johanna. The Howondalandian girl suddenly gasped and exclaimed:-

"Remember when we were training? Something like this nearly inhumed you!"

"This might even be the same place!" Alice said, shuddering.

___________________________________________

1 In _**The Art of Discworld**_ and _**The Assassins' Yearbook**_, Kidby draws "stealth archaeologist" Alice Band to look not a million miles away from Roundworld computer game icon Lara Croft – who is very definitely a fantasy for growing boys, judging by some of the, er, _unseemlier_ websites featuring artistic impressions of her.


	8. An unpleasant flashback

Alice had been the first of the mature students to edge a tentative way over the void. The fact somebody had been here before and left the ropeway behind was, she considered, a pleasant surprise. The Compte de Yoyo, supervising the group, held his peace. Alice, with increasing confidence, had _drainholed_ her way along the convenient rope until she was twenty feet out, too far away to leap back to the walkway again.

The too-convenient ropeway.

The piton slid out as if it had been deliberately loosened and greased. Which it probably had been, she thought, later.

The momentum of her falling jerked two more out, and served to steady her fall as she barrel-rolled and hit the almost-water feet-first, remembering to take a deep breath as she went in. The same momentum carried her under, and her feet hit bottom. Forcing calm, she waited for the same momentum to start carrying her up. Nothing happened.

With mounting horror, she realized her boots were stuck in what she hoped was the mud and silt at the bottom of the Cloaca. She tried to jerk them loose. She was stuck fast.

_Knowledge dispels fear._

She recalled her knee-boots were zipped, not laced. Forcing calm, she tried to crouch and force the zips down…then wiggled her feet in suddenly-loose footwear. Lungs screaming for breath, she forced herself upwards and her head broke the surface of the almost-water. She took a deep elated breath and wished she hadn't. _Things _bobbed past her face.

From above, a rope-sling descended. She caught it, and was hauled up to the platform, where she helplessly vomited over the side, adding a little to the miasma of the waters below.

De Yoyo languidly stepped forward.

"Who would like to comment on Miss Band's little demonstration? Anyone? Very well. "

He paused.

"Overconfidence. The first enemy of the Assassin. What did she do wrong? Mr Rogers?"

Derek Rogers, a former banker who had taken a very personal attitude towards fraud and robbery, coughed nervously.

"She trusted the ropes, sir? Ropes she had not installed and made safe herself?"

"Correct!" the Compte boomed. "Never assume a convenient rope leading in the direction in which you wish to travel is there for _your_ benefit! You will _always_ create a new way of your own!"

He paused, and added:

"But that was a very creditable Emergency Drop, Miss Band. Very creditable. Just a shame you had to put yourself in a position where it became necessary! Incidentally, ladies and gentlemen, had Miss Band been wearing lace-up boots, she would have been _very_ much more certain of death by drowning just then. These new zippers offer a faster release when you are stuck in mud at the bottom of a body of water."

Alice watched Joan Sanderson and Emmanuelle looking down at their laced-up boots and blanching.

De Yoyo supervised the class in setting up a new roped and pitoned crossway over the gap. Alice looked down gloomily at her grimy bare feet, contemplating the cost of new boots. Something tapped her on the shoulder.

"Oh…hello!" she said. A filth-smothered Gnoll said in its hissing voice "Y'r bu'ts, Lady!" and passed them over.

Alice could have kissed it. Gnolls. Filthy bottom-dwellers that had colonized the lower reaches of the city. Of course they'd forage down here. The city gnolls were peaceful enough, unlike their wild counterparts.

"Have you… somewhere to keep money?" she asked, offering the scavenger an assortment of coin, which she knew included several dollar coins.

It touched what she hoped it thought was its forelock.

"thnk's, Lady! 'Ssassins alw's tip w'll!"

"_Noblesse oblige_, and all that" she murmured, putting the feared-lost boots back on.


	9. Joan is caught and gets an Angel

_Another minor rewrite, tidy, and brush-up. _

Joan was becoming quietly and discreetly rich. The private account at the Royal Bank was showing a healthy turnover, and in her legitimate job, she could now afford to employ teaching assistants at both the cookery college and the elocution and deportment school.

But she was not immune to nervous attacks when, for instance, Commander Vimes of the Watch passed in the street and gave her a respectful salutation accompanied by a hard appraising eye.

_He knows_, she thought. _What has he found out about me? _And _Perhaps I should give up the other things. I don't need to do them any more._

The Assassins' Guild had also invited her in-house: rather than disrupt the school day by sending boys off-site to her classes, Dr Cruces had suggested it might be beneficial if she worked from inside the school for two days a week. She had agreed, but with a nugget of inner doubt, a thought of _this is also a good way for the Guild to keep me under observation. What do they know about my other life? _

She made the best of it, carefully assimilating what the previous teacher using the classroom had written on the board concerning use and application of poison, or suitable weapons to deploy according to circumstance, and discreetly collecting any disregarded hand-outs that teacher might have issued on the theme of inhumation. Knowledge was knowledge, after all.

With her elocution pupils, getting them to speak at length , so she could assess the degree of change needed in their accents, became a matter of encouraging them to talk about their schoolday, about particularly cool poisons used by Mr Mericet, or fiendish traps devised by Mr Di Nivor. Joan, who had a retentive memory, stored up this second-hand theoretical education for possible practical use later. It was also to contribute to her downfall.

She took evening classes at her cookery school. Sometimes, a woman pupil stayed behind for a discreet chat. Joan had learned to be cautious and discriminating: if a woman wanted an otherwise good and blameless husband removed because he was an impediment to a new life with her lover, or she was merely bored with him, or if she only wished to inherit, she was politely but firmly shown to the door.

When "Mrs. Ping" joined the class, and afterwards artlessly asked how her husband could die early so she could benefit from a widow's pension, Joan had discovered the "husband" was Lance-Constable Ping of the Watch. Besides, a seemingly artless question to Fred Colon had revealed to her that Ping was single. So the "wife" had to be a Watchwoman, a set-up to gather crucial evidence. Mrs. Ping was politely shown the door too. But this worried Joan: the mere fact Vimes and Carrot knew enough to plant an _agent provocateur_ in her class.

_I must stop_, thought Joan. But killing worthless husbands, drunks, wife-batterers, child abusers, had got into her blood. She was addicted to killing, _sanitizing_, _cleaning-up, _to making the world a tidier and safer place for women. _I wish I could stop!_

Her downfall occurred with speed and without overt drama.

She had been guiding O'Hennigan Minor through his speech exercises, designed to enable him to suppress his grating Hergenian accent, and to speak in a manner befitting an Ankh-Morporkian gentleman.

"_Again, James!"_

"The deep sea bloatfish has the most poisonous swim bladder known to man. Its spines drip poison capable of causing every cell in the body to swell to a hundred times their normal size. An assassin skilled in extracting the venom may, with care and attention, harvest enough to tip a thousand thin darts…."

"No James, not "a t'ousand t'in tarts"! _Do_ concentrate, say it with me, a thousand thin darts! The _soft_ "th", James. Remember?"

"Ah, Miss Sanderson-Reeves. An interesting choice of subject matter." The dry, sardonic, voice came from just behind her.

"Mr Mericet" she said, without turning. "If they have to repeat by rote, the subject matter may as well be of benefit to their broader education!"

"Indeed." He said. And "If you permit. Mr O'Hennnigan, in your best Morporkian accent, speak to me of spume!"

"Spume, sir, is a fungally derived poison obtained by harvesting the spores of the Herhebian black mushroom. It may be delivered in powder form, or dissolved into a carrier medium such as alcohol. It is said that the best delivery mechanism is via the ear"

"And I what circumstances is delivery via the ear contra-indicated?"

O'Hennigan was at a loss. Joan couldn't help herself. She heard herself say:

"If the potential inhumee has neglected their aural health and the ear is impacted with wax, the poison may just sit there forever, with no way of penetrating the inner ear to the sensitive brain tissue that lies behind". There was an embarrassed guilty silence. "Or so I've heard" Joan added, hurriedly.

Mericet fixed her with a cold icy glare. "Now where did you find _that _out, I wonder?" he mused.

Joan stared him out. "You hear the boys. You see things written on the blackboard. You absorb the atmosphere."

Perhaps" the old Assassin shrugged. "But I read, in a recent copy of the _Tanty Bugle_ that I of course acquired by confiscation from one of the boys, of an unauthorized inhumation1 in the City, where the unknown killer saw to it by ingenious means that the inhumee's ears were thoroughly scoured of wax before she inserted the spume. Carried in the warm olive-oil she was using to clean his ears out with."

"Then I'm sure the Watch will find the killer and we can all sleep easier in our beds!" Joan declared, steadily.

"The Bugle is already talking about a serial killer called the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor". A vulgar title, but presumed to be a woman who only targets errant husbands. As you say, I'm sure she will be found soon. By _somebody_, if not by the Watch."

Mericet nodded goodbye, and stalked out. Joan took a series of calming breaths.

_They know! He's only playing with me!_

Her most recent sterilization had been a completely disgusting little man who had abused trust to be able to abuse his nieces, under the guise of "babysitting". It had been the children's mother who had hired Joan to deal with her husband's brother. Discovering the target to be a hypochondriac, Joan had posed as a nurse, sent out to syringe excess wax out of his ears. The bluff, brisk, no-nonsense manner that Joan projected in the course of her everyday life was also that which screamed professional nurse at the world, and she had had no problem in being completely accepted in the role. Disguising her disgust – she'd done things like this for her dogs a hundred times – she cleaned the build-up of filth out of his ear passages using warmed olive oil to dissolve it.

The final application of olive oil contained a cargo of deadly spume spores, obtained from the Guild labs. She poured just enough into each ear.

Long after she had gone, he went into agonized convulsions and died. Nobody connected it to the nurse's visit at first, but Watch forensic psychologist Sergeant Littlebottom, forewarned by a series of loosely related mystery deaths across the city, had insisted on checking the body. After hearing a nurse had called to syringe the deceased's ears, Littlebottom focused her attention here. She found spume in a carrying medium of olive oil. She reported back to Commander Vimes.

The hunt was on to find the "nurse". But by now, it wasn't just the Watch who were looking. Summoned to the Palace, Vimes and the CSP detectives on the case were ordered to share their knowledge with _other_ investigators. Time was running out for Joan.

It came to an end for her the day after her indiscretion with Mericet. She had finished classes for the day, and had just picked up her hat and coat to go home. As she left the classroom, a black-clad Assassin fell in on each side of her.

"You have an appointment with the Master" one said to her.

She went quietly.

Joan noticed that Dr Cruces was present, but two others were there. The dark, brooding, presence of Commander Vimes of the Watch stood off to one side, regarding her speculatively. Cruces was stansing on the other side of the man sitting behind the desk, who steepled his fingers and raised a quizzical eyebrow at her.

"Ah, the Marriage Guidance Counsellor, I believe." he said, holding her eyes with a gaze that was neither friendly nor unfriendly – it was just intellectually interested, as if she were a worthwhile puzzle to be solved.

"Dr Cruces, the charges?"

"Miss Sanderson- Reeves. We have good reason to believe that over the last three years, you have committed between eighteen and twenty-four acts of unlicenced inhumation**(1)**"

"Well, I'm flattered you should think it's twenty-four, but my own count is actually eighteen." she said. _I may be a killer, but I do not lie. Nor brag._

Vetinari nodded.

"At my polite request, the investigators from the Assassins' Guild and the detectives from the Cable Street Particulars met at the Palace and, in a spirit of open and gratifying co-operation between the Watch and the Guild, freely shared their respective information."

The scowl that spread across Vimes' face would have cracked the granite pillars. Dr Cruces smiled, weakly.

"This opened up new lines of investigation, all of which pointed directly to you. I'm pleased you aren't wasting our time by denying it." He paused. "Now all that is left is to decide in whose jurisdiction this case should be tried. On the one hand, there is a case for trying you in open city court, which would result almost inevitably in a short stay in the Tanty followed by an opportunity to pronounce any famous last words you may have prepared. And I'm sure, given your trade, that you'll enunciate them beautifully. But as a Guild employee, it could well be argued that you are dealt with in whatever manner the Assassins' Guild deems most appropriate. In which case the outcome might well be the same, only performed in more privacy.

"Commander Vimes and Dr Cruces have agreed that, as you have already effectively pled guilty, and the outcome of a hearing is going to be broadly similar, that you yourself should choose who judges. The City or the Guild? Think carefully."

Joan had no hesitation.

"The Guild." she said, wanting the dignity of a death in private.

Vetinari nodded. "I'm relieved." he said. "I don't know if you follow gossip and small-talk – you have been an extraordinarily busy woman - but the talk in the city is of the killer dubbed the Marriage Guidance Counsellor. It has been noticed that she picked only the most repulsive and the least defensible of specimens, the beaters, he abusers, the child-molesters, for what she termed "sterilization".

"A good word." Cruces said. "It's already gaining popularity in the Guild as a euphemism for "annulment" or "inhumation"."

"Therefore half our city's population – the female half - is all in her favour. Had you elected to be executed in public, I'm quite sure the mob would have rushed the scaffold to rescue you."

Vetinari leant back.

"And now…are you familiar with the concept of angels?"

Joan was taken aback.

"I believe Dr Cruces is about to offer you one."

Joan was taken aback as Cruces outlined the same offer he had made to Alice Band and would make to Johanna and Emmanuelle.

Cruces concluded:- "Will you join us? And I fully expect that in the next year, you will, as a mature entrant, train and learn hard so as to pass the Black Syllabus, which then entitles you to full Assassin status."

He paused, and added: "The alternative is, of course, that the death sentence that was effectively passed in this room today upon you, by properly constituted civil and Guild authority, is carried out at the earliest possible opportunity. As it is, the sentence is not revoked. Merely set aside, on condition that you qualify as an Assassin. You will also, of course, have to carefully and scrupulously refrain from further inhumations until you are fully qualified. That too is a condition of your suspended sentence. While you have freedom to nominate others to look after your business interests in the City, from this moment on you are under house arrest within this Guild and we undertake to look after you. Sir Samuel insisted on this. This condition may be relaxed in the future depending on your good conduct.

"Rooms appropriate to your status have been prepared. You have freedom to go where you will within the public areas of the Guildhouse and will carry on your teaching duties, for which we will continue to pay you. Now sign these papers, if you please, as a written proof of your acceptance?"

"You only ever get _one_ Angel." Vetinari prompted her, as she hesitated slightly. She signed.

"Congratulations, and welcome to the Guild family. Your provisional membership card will find you in due course."

Vimes and Vetinari conferred.

"Does that serve the interests of justice, Sir Samuel?"

"My Watchwomen are all secretly on her side. They'll give her a hearty cheer. But sir. She's not a young woman. There's a reason the Assassins train them in their teens! It's bloody physically strenuous, for one thing! She's way over forty, nearer my age! What's the betting she'll die during training? Wouldn't it have been kinder to hang her at the Tanty two mornings from now?"

"Excuse ME!" Joan said, affronted. "I'm **perfectly **fit, thank you very much!" A little part of her mind grasped onto Vimes' _What's the betting she'll die during training? _and leapt from there to _"Of course, that's what they want! Vetinari doesn't want the publicity and the Guild doesn't want the embarrassment. This way it looks like they're being merciful, but they're just waiting for the problem I present to quietly sort itself out without any fuss. _

Joan said, without rancour, and with immense dignity: "Cast your mind back several years, Dr Cruces, to a different discussion in this room. Where even though I was able to pay a standard Guild rate for an inhumation, you regretfully told me _The Guild does not do domestic disputes _and Lady T'Malia showed me to the door."

"I remember." Cruces said, with a note of real regret in his voice. "That is why I hold myself at least in part responsible for the situation that developed."

Joan nodded, primly. "And so you should! And Sir Samuel, has it not been long-standing Watch policy and practice that _Watchmen do not get involved in domestic disputes_? "

Vimes had the good grace to look embarrassed. "That's a hangover from the old Day Watch days when Quirke was in command. It's changing now. I've got Watchwomen who aren't above coming up behind a wife-beater in a dark alley and growl- _shouting_ down his ear, shall we say."

"I'm pleased to hear it. But the Guild stands clear. The Watch is reluctant to get involved. There are still battered wives and abused children. _Somebody_ had to take their part!"

"And may do so again in the future, quite legally, should she qualify as an Assassin." Vetinari remarked. "As I never had this Guild marked down as squeamish or selective on the type of contracts it accepts. Look on it as a whole new area of business for you, Doctor. With a skilled professional near at hand to advise and direct."

Vetinari lifted a hand. He told a story.

Once upon a time, there was a very wise Klatchian mystic named Nasrudin. Nasrudin had an unfortunate habit of speaking his mind with unwise candour and honesty, and during some incident involving this he ran afoul of Abrim, Grand Vizier to the Seriph Creosote, who had him tried and sentenced to death.

"O Seriph! O Grand Vizier!" Nasrudin cried, throwing himself to his knees. "Please, you must spare my life, for I am The Greatest Teacher The World Has Ever Known."

"What is that to me?" replied the haughty Grand Vizier.

"If you spare my life, I can teach your favorite horse to fly."

"That would be wonderful," laughed Abrim. "You have one year."

The next day, a follower managed to visit Nasrudin in the stables where he had been shackled. "Why did you make such an absurd bargain?" the student asked. "Surely, O Wise One, even you cannot teach a horse to fly."

"Well, perhaps not," Nasrudin admitted. "But a year is a long time. I might find a way to escape. Or perhaps the Seriph and the Grand Vizier will die, or be deposed. In a year, he may even learn forgiveness."

Then Nasrudin shrugged and smiled. "And who knows? Maybe the damned horse _will_ learn to fly."

Joan smiled with gratitude, seeing the point. Vetinari nodded back.

A cold, hard, steely core emerged inside her. She had a year. A lot could happen in a year. Nasrudin had been saved when some sort of business had happened with a powerful Wizard, hadn't he? The stories were confused**(2)**, but Abrim had been killed, Creosote had disappeared, and the new Prince had issued amnesty. Well, she would pass their damn test when they weren't expecting her to. In her case, the damned horse WAS going to learn to fly. However old and jaded a mare it was.

Head raised, defiant, calm, she went to start her new life.

* * *

**(1)** Assassin-speak for "murder"

**(2) **See _**Sourcery**_ by Tery Pratchett. Memories of the time of the sourcerer are scanty and confused and have the status of fairy-tale and folklore. Between Coin and the History Monks this was the best patching-up of history that was available. The only place hat knew the full story was the University and nobody's in a hurry to tell. Also see my story _**If The Hat Fits**_, which revisits these events.


	10. The only enemy to fear is yourself

Alice and Johanna edged across the gap, the almost-water of the Cloaca Maxima swirling and eddying forty feet beneath their feet, making the best of the older ropework, testing every piton first and moving in slow careful steps. Above them, the stone work of the Cloaca soared and curved to its apex, perhaps a handred feet above them. Alice felt enervated and purposeful: the extra concentration this _drainholing_ called from her, together with the additional consideration that almost certainly some of the ropes had been tampered with, made her feel confident and at home.

"Elmost there, Ellice!" Johanna called. Alice grinned to herself, remembering the way Joan Sanderson-Reeves had fawned over Emannuelle's "quite charming!" Quirmian accent, but had blanched on being confronted with Johanna's harsh and grating White Howondalandian. Evidently some foreign accents were more acceptable then others to the elocution teacher.

Joan had then continued to get off on the wrong foot with Johanna by delicately offering to do something about the way she spoke Morporkian – "these things can be _remedied_, dear". To which Johanna had replied "This wes good enough for my ouma. This wes good enough for my mother. It's good enough for my volk! So it hes to be good enough for me! And my grend-opie wes the _ferrrst_ generation of my femmily to speak eny Morporkien ET ELL! Before her, the van der Kaffirboetjes spoke only the old language, der _Wondalaans_!"

Realising she had wounded the younger woman's national pride, Joan had apologized and withdrawn.

But this hadn't stopped the three younger women gathering protectively round the older, discreetly helping her through those parts of the syllabus they instinctively grasped and which Joan had problems with. There had been a shared awareness that the four of them, if they were to survive at all, had to share their skills and survive together. Thus, Alice, the natural edificeer, took Johanna and Joan on extra rooftop runs to help them pass the course as "adequate". Emmanuelle, the gifted swordswoman, put them through extra classes in blade theory and swordsmanship with a variety of edged weapons, adding a few interesting new techniques for Alice, who had her own proficiency.

Johanna, the frontierswoman, took the three others into the wilderness and taught them how to survive in even the most inhospitable of places. (The women noted that while they'd secured a leave of absence from the Guild, they were still being discreetly trailled by a party of student Assassins and their teacher. Johanna and Alice made a point of raiding their camp by night and stealing a variety of interestingly personal items, getting in and out un-noticed, even leaving notes pinned to the breasts of the sleepers saying "You have been inhumed".)

Joan's unparalleled personal experience came to the fore in classes such as Poisons and Poisoning, Intelligence-Gathering, and Making an Entrance By Stealth. In fact, Mericet himself could barely fault her application and dedication, and graded her with an exemplary 98%.

And down here in the sewers, the passing task had been to climb to the very apex of the sewer and then down again on the other side. It was a 7.0 rated climb: halfway through, hanging by your fingertips and toes at the very highest point, with gravity screaming at every muscle and ligament, it was necessary to perform a full hundred and eighty degree turn, so as to descend feet-first on the other side. Anyone trying a descent head-first would soon realise it was the last thing they'd ever do. Alice had bullied Joan through the turn – the trick was to waste no time and do it as quickly as possible – marveling that even here, Assassins past had stopped to write or carve their names – and talked her through the descent.

It didn't help that a despairing scream was heard to Doppler down towards that unspeakable water, followed by a dull splash. And nothing.

"Keep moving, keep moving!" Alice urged.

"The faster you go, the more you get the benefit of the curve in the wall evening out. You'll feel less strain on shoulders and hips. Everything returns to a kind of normal about… now, with your head up above your shoulders again, where it's meant to be. Now we just climb gently and carefully down. Which you've done a dozen times before."

Even so, Joan was shaking like a leaf at the bottom, and had to be assisted to sit down. It was some minutes before she was able to stand again.

Things weren't helped by Compte de Yoyo announcing that "Mr Everett appears to have failed himself. Both on the climb and on the Emergency Drop. Which means there are now, what, twenty-six of you left, from an initial intake of thirty?"

"At least let us look for him!" Alice heard somebody shout, indignantly.

"If you wish. From just over a hundred feet up he would have impacted with all the force of a man hitting a brick wall. You may retrieve the body and take it back with you to the Guild as an additional field exercise."

Roland Everett had been one of the sub-group of mature entrants known as The Accountants. They were all bank clerks, accountants, or book-keepers who had inhumed for money. Alice had wondered why the Guild had collected so many, until it was revealed that the veteran Guild Bursar, Mr Wimvoe, was considering retirement within the next few years. As Assassin Accountants were few and far between, this had been a chance to recruit a likely successor in good time. _Well, one less to compete for the job_, thought Alice.

They attended the fourth funeral of one of the Mature Students Class with low morale and heavy hearts. Nearly a sixth of the intake dead, and the year only a quarter gone.

Bartholomew Matkin had died first, a man who on a live Traps and Pitfalls exercise had carelessly stood right in front of a door while opening it. It had been agreed afterwards that his gloves had probably dispersed the poison smeared on the latch, but the trapdoor beneath his feet activated by opening the latch mechanism had been crucial in plummeting him right into the bowels of the City. Retrieval of the body had taken a long time.

Jeremiah Culvert had fallen to his death during a routine Edificeering lesson, victim of a defective safety-rope he had not checked for fraying.

Philip Worsely had breathed in at the wrong moment during the synthesis of Black Agaric during a Poisons lesson. .

But the survivors had been shocked into realizing the price of failure. They were hardening up. Four women and twenty-two men remained from thirty.

Classroom sessions could mean the Mature Students were split up into smaller groups and shared a class with school-age pupils as and where necessary. Here, they were seen as quaint curiosities, except for the brighter students who realized that one day in the immediate future, some of these old fossils would end up teaching _them_.

For Joan, who still had the burden of being a part-time teacher in the Guild, a strange thing was happening. She'd known for a long time she commanded a kind of _respect_ among the boys. Now the secret was out, that she had on her own account succeeded in eighteen inhumations, it had become a kind of awe. And there was also the other factor…

She'd first seen it when after ten minutes of brisk no-nonsense bullying of Eccleston Minor to get him to produce the correct speech sounds, the boy had burst into tears and stood there blubbing.

Mustering what patience she could, she had asked him if her teaching style was too harsh? Too abrupt, maybe? She had no apologies, because, my lad, if you _don't_ jolly well shape up and get tough, you'll meet an _awful_ lot worse in this school!

"No, miss, it's not that…" the boy had gulped through his tears. "It's just that… you're making me homesick! My nanny was just like you!"

Some things require little explanation. A twelve-year old boy, product of a stern unsympathetic nanny and governess, had just met a woman who conjured up his happy early childhood, which was utterly traumatic in the impersonal and harsh world of the boarding school. And Joan realized, partly to her horror and partly to her gratification, that many of her pupils identified her with the Nanny who'd brought them up in early life.

And now those boys were flocking to her and helping her pass the course, passing on their knowledge, preparing her for difficult parts of the syllabus, because, well, you'll do it for Nanny, won't you? And older boys, who she'd taught to speak like young Morporkian gentlemen if it killed her, were now reaping the benefits of sounding and acting like young men of means, and felt a corresponding debt of gratitude to the teacher who'd helped them fit in. And all of them respected her eighteen confirmed inhumations and were firmly of the opinion that such talent should not be allowed to Fail the test and be lost to the Guild. Those she had taught and who had passed Finals made a point of taking their old teacher to dinner, and telling her all they could about the Test and how to pass it – invaluable knowledge, that she shared later with Emmanuelle and Johanna and Alice, in the suite of rooms they shared in an upper floor at the Guild.

But now, Lord Downey, the new Guild Master, was addressing them at Everett's funeral.

He praised the surviving members of the Senior Class for their ongoing dedication to learning the craft of Assassin, and stressed that after the recent most regrettable incidents in which leadership of the Guild had passed into his hands, **(1)** there had been no change in policy or strategy. The Guild was committed fiercely to the education of its mature students, and was determined to see as many of them passed what was still a _rigorous_ and _demanding_ selection procedure.

"On four occasions now, you have worked to ensure that a fellow Assassin is not dishonoured or abandoned, even in death. This is most laudable and in the finest traditions of the Guild. You brought back the body, often in difficult and dangerous circumstances. I believe Miss Band and Miss Sanderson-Reeves are to be epecially praised in this respect.

"We do not abandon our dead. There are many reasons for this, but first and foremost is the respect we owe to a friend and colleague. We do not leave our dead to be dishonoured. There are practical reasons too: you leave nothing from which a client of an unsuccessful inhumation may gain information and intelligence, least of all the identity of one who tried to inhume him and failed. After all, we all have friends and family members outside the Guild walls who may then be compromised by those of little or no honour. The dead Assassin will also carry valuable, sometimes secret, tools and equipment, which we take good care to see that nobody outside these walls views, except very briefly in strictly limited circumstances."

Alice nodded: she remembered the auction of Everett's equipment and possessions, which had seemed distasteful to her the first time she witnessed it, but she now recognized fulfilled several useful functions, not the least of which was psychological closure. **(2)**

"Let me make it very clear" Downey went on, addressing the packed Chapel, "That we have no interest in killing you. We accepted you as potential full Guild members, each of whom has something vital and important to offer the Guild family, and the death of any one of you diminishes us all. We have every interest in seeing you qualify as full, chartered, Assassins.

Let me remind you. Let me make it abundantly clear. The _only _person who can fail you as an Assassin is you yourself. Conquer that enemy within, and you will qualify. And I look forward, very greatly, to that day. I recruited most of you, after all! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

A definite wind of change had blown through the Guild since Dr Cruces had passed into an unspecified sort of insanity and then into death. Alice suspected it was part of a wider wind of change blowing through the City.

Leaving the Chapel, she looked at the new front gates, and the paler cleaner stonework where a troll-shaped hole had been patched up. She remembered the afternoon when the world had turned upside down for the Guild. She and the other ladies had just returned from a training exercise when the explosions and the shouting had happened. Asking a shaken Assassin what was happening, the news that Cruces had been chased up the stairs by _Watchmen_ – _in his own Guild?_ – and some sort of a fight was happening in the Master's Office. It was incredible. Still more so when Vimes, and the mountainous Carrot, had walked slowly and grimly down the stairs lined with Assassins, who included four unheeded female students . She had noted that Carrot was carrying the strange _gonne_-weapon in one hand, and had the body of a large golden-haired dog slung over his shoulder. They had confronted Downey, who had inexplicably given way… and then the troll had burst in.

Something momentuous had happened.

The Assassin's Guild had been exposed in a plot to assassinate the Patrician. It had failed. Cruces was dead. The Watch had been allowed to walk into Guild premises and conduct arrests – in the Guild. And to get out again. Downey had undergone long and uncomfortable interviews at the palace, to try to rescue what pride and prestige he could.

But in the shifting sands of city politics, the Assassins' guild had lost a lot of face and a lot of power. Vimes' Watch had gained correspondingly.

Alice wondered out loud about walking out of the Guild and signing on as a Watchwoman. After all, they were in the ascendancy now, and none of Alice's inhumations had occurred within Vimes' jurisdiction. The others laughed, and accused her of having dangerous thoughts.

Emmanuelle thoughtfully said she suspected their rooms backed directly onto the Fools' Guild. "Could we escape that way, do you think, or will the Clowns just send us back?"

"Right now, m'dear, they'd kill us. Sergeant Clapstick **(3)** is not a nice man and his little jokes tend to be terminal!" Joan cautioned.

But they all got to see the oval sword-blade shaped hole in the pillar in the Master's Study, the one that had not been there before, and wondered about Vimes and Carrot…

* * *

**(1)** See **"Men At Arms"**

**(2)** British airmen in both world wars auctioned off the kit of friends who'd failed to come back from a mission: the practice is believed to persist in Special Forces, ie the SAS and SBS.

**(3)** Sergeant Jack Clapstick is head of the Jolly Good Pals, the lethal-force Laugh-Yourself-to-Death Enforcers of the Fools' Guild. Not a nice man. He redefines "Black Humour" in a very terminal way.


	11. Checkpoint TwentySeven

Checkpoint Twenty-Five was located, in the mouth of a lateral drain emptying into the Cloaca at the same height as the inspection walkway. A small alcove approximately the size and shape of a vertical coffin had a "25" chalked discreetly inside it.

Johanna made a face, and the two women parted with a mutually warming hug and a squeeze of the hands. Then Alice went off alone to seek out Checkpoint Twenty-Seven, her own station. She tried to recall who'd drawn Twenty-Six, wondering if their paths would cross. She'd be safest to announce herself in passing, anyway, as a fellow examiner and not as a Candidate. _But then_, she thought, _it doesn't necessarily follow 26 has to be in the Cloaca: maybe Johanna has to direct a proportion of hers back into a side-drain or up into the Undercity , and it could be parallel to here, or on the next level up. No way of telling. _

Alert for the Emergency Drop zone that would precede her checkpoint, Alice speculated for a moment or two on the logistics and planning that must go into this.

We started a hundred and eighty girls off as First-Years seven years ago. A hundred and twenty boarders and sixty Day Pupils. Another new intake of a hundred and eighty followed on every year after that. A similar number of boys have always been pupils at this school. So effectively numbers doubled. OK, not all those three hundred and sixty pupils will be Candidates for examination tonight. A significant number, let's say half, come here only for the general education, and many of those leave for other schools, or for appropriate forms of professional training, at sixteen. I ought to know, I've packed a few off to the Archaeology College in Quirm with my personal recommendation. We even had one who started developing magical abilities and had to be transferred to the University!

Out of those training for the Black, let's say two hundred in each intake, quite a few will fail or eliminate themselves over the seven years. But we also get a dribble of late entrants or transfers from other Schools who balance out the Fails. And you have economics to consider, too. For established Assassins to make a decent living, you don't want to flood the market every year with too many newly-licenced Assassins. Even so, I calculate maybe a hundred and eighty Candidates of both sexes are doing the run tonight. _Whoa, watch where you're putting your feet, Alice!_

She stopped dead and scrutinized the ground in front of her. Outwardly there was nothing to distinguish the rough, pitted, mud-ingrained stone in front of her from any other part of the inspection walkway. But something didn't feel right. She laid full-length on the ground and inched forward, feeling with her fingers. Was that a slight instability, the merest shift? She tapped the stone with the pommel of a dagger. It had a hollow echo to it. She explored under the edge of the walkway and onto its vertical surface. _Ah-ha! Nothing underneath, just a void… and a hint of a mechanism? Fresh oil on the fingers of my gloves. Let's hope it's oil! _

Traps and Pitfalls number twenty-three: the Tilting Slab. The one that when you step on it, it lurches up and to your right with shocking abruptness and throws you to your right. Straight into the almost-water below. _This is my Emergency Drop, evidently._

Alice drainholed her way past, skillfully climbing along the vertical wall to her left rather than trusting the walkway.

And there it was: number twenty-seven. The beginning of a flight of stairs ascending up and out of the abyss, most probably a service stairway. And a recessed cubicle, possibly where a drainage engineer long-dead had once had a necessary office to fill in the parchments and (she shuddered) eat his lunch? It had a discreet "27" chalked at the doorway, anyway.

Alice made use of it to organize her paperwork, and find a place to settle and reassure the caged messenger rats. She composed herself, and continued her interrupted line of thought.

Grune di Nivor told me that in the old days, with a lot fewer Candidates, it was the case that one member of staff would monitor and examine a single Candidate throughout his Test. Pteppic said as much, when I met him at the Unveiling (she suppressed an amused smile at the memory). Poor man, he drew Mericet as his Examiner. **(1)**

Today, it's more of a production line, like some wretched proletarian factory, Mericet said. With nearly two hundred, you don't have the leisure any more, so I'm likely to see at least four pass by me. That's if nobody Fails. And fairer, too, as Passing or Failing is no longer at the whim of one member of staff. Each Candidate will see up to four of us, briefly. So even if the student comes up against a Teacher who loathes them, and we all have the ones who are hard to love (she thought of Alexander Lavish and Deborah Rust) there are still three other chances to make good.

And besides, some people want to qualify as Assassins for the challenge of it, but they never practice. Or like Pteppic, their only inhumation is such a triumph of style that they retire afterwards, knowing they've hit a career best and become a Guild legend first time out.

She remembered Pteppic and smiled. It had been about halfway through the Senior Class training year, when, in accordance with Guild custom, a distinguished Old Boy had been invited back to the School to unveil a statue, in the Guild library, commemorating his career-best inhumation.

Apparently, there had been a cross-dimensional disturbance in Djelbeybi shortly after Pteppic's graduation that had meant that all 3,148 previous Monarchs had risen from their pyramids all at once and, not so much Undead as never properly died in the first place, had marched back into the living world to complain about the shoddy quality of Afterlife they'd received. At the same time, the entire pantheon of local Gods, giggling and insane, had returned to Earth, or at least to a Djelibeybi where normal maths and physics had taken a sabbatical.

Pteppic's achievement had been to inhume, in more or less that order, the entire pantheon of insane Gods, then the methodically insane High Priest responsible for bringing all this about, together with, simultaneously, 3,148 previous monarchs, as well as the entire age-old riparian civilization of Djelibeybi.

The commemorative plaque under the statue had been necessarily short, but conveyed the essential facts that all this had been brought about by Pteppicymon XXVIII (Viper House) with nothing more than faith in the conductive powers of a Number Three Throwing Knife.

Distinguished guests had been invited, the School turned out, speeches made, a guaranteed non-lethal running buffet and non-contaminated drinks had been laid on. Pteppic, who now defined himself as a _business consultant_, and who was known to have put in a bid for Crumleys, the prestigious department store in the Maul **(2)** (despite people grumbling it wasn't right for a foreigner, and a Djelibeybian foreigner at that, to own one of Ankh-Morpork's most upmarket retail emporiums), made an affable speech, noting that he'd quite like to come back in another few years to see how the girls were faring at his old school. If a lady Pharoah of his acquaintance were any guide, he suspected that women would prove to be even better than the boys at ruthless cut-throat dealings carried out in dark places.

Everything went well up until the moment the commemorative statue was unveiled.

Enquiries afterwards revealed that the Guild had been keen to be seen as a Sponsor of the Arts, and had chosen the radical and daring Daniellarina Pouter to design the Pteppic memorial statue so as to be at the cutting edge of modern artistic expression.

Ms Pouter's bronze of _Pteppicymon XVIII casting down the Gods and the Massed Kings of Djelibeybi _took the form of a sandtray. A large cat-litter tray, in which were studded bits of white marble and lengths of unraveling bandage. A bronze statue of an indeterminate creature that might, in a charitable light, have been interpreted as a cat, was seen to be squatting above the wreckage in a posture that was extremely unambiguous and completely unmistakeable. It had an indefinable look of satisfaction on its face – the sculptress, it was generally agreed, had carried _that_ off faultlessly.

Even though Pteppic had been first to laugh, and had passed comment on the lasting rewards of the job, the Guild had been embarrassed. Again. But in default of anything better, the statue remained. Rumour had it that the Dark Council was wary of provoking the fiery sculptress's legendary wrath, and that not even a certified psycho like Jonathon Teatime would have cared go after her with an inhumation contract. **(3)**

Alice smiled at the memory, then took deep, regular, breaths to empty her mind of inessentials. She adopted a loose cross-legged sitting position, in a deep shadow from which she could see and not be seen, and waited for the first of her Candidates.

* * *

**(1)** See _**Pyramids.**_

**(2)** Think of Egyptian business consultant and facilitator Mohammed-el-Fayed, who against determined competition bought the very prestigious London department store Harrods, and still owns it today. A lot of fairly nasty racism and snobbery was thrown at him during that time. Pteppic comes over as more pleasant, personaly likeable and less sewer-mouthed than el-Fayed, but the parellel is irresistable! (I'm assuming that after abdicating the throne of Djelibeybi to his sister Ptraci, Pteppic would then have used his not inconsiderable brain to go into partnership with his Assassins' Guild clasmate Chidder. Some money would inevitably have been made in dodgy ways - again a parellel with el-Fayed's earlier career as arms dealer - but the association would have vastly benefited both old friends. There may be a story in this...)

**(3)** Shortly after this, however, Patrician Vetinari, an alumnus of the Assassins' Guild, found reason to nail her to that post again, this time by her _other_ ear. "Balance and symmetry, my dear" he said, pleasantly. "Two of the very fundamental pillars of classical art!"


	12. Pressganged: Johanna joins the Guild

_Another tidy and rewrite._

* * *

Army Movement Order

From the Bureau Of Defence, Dept 22XY

To 7051723 Ensign Smith-Rhodes, J., the Ramkin Barracks, Piemburg.

_"You will report to the ship _**De Vliegende Howondalaander**_as part of its marine escort. You will be tasked with keeping the ship and its cargo secure and safe from pirate attack on its voyage to Ankh-Morpork. You will be paid off in Ankh-Morpork and will be formally discharged from the Armed Forces with the rank of Liutnant at our Embassy, located on Scoone Avenue in Ankh. A return ticket will be provided by the Staadt to enable you to return home in civilian comfort. On behalf of the Bureau of Defence, I thank you for your loyal service..." _

* * *

The principal exports of White Howondaland were, in order of volume, fruit, flowers, vegetables, and interesting geological deposits such as that allotrope of carbon which is subjected to intense heat and pressure miles beneath the planet's surface. Pleasing and noteworthy examples are sold to specialist geological dealers in Ankh-Morpork under the codeword of "heat treated coal" or "compressed jet".

Similarly, Howondaland is rich in the ores of various metals. Sometimes you don't even need to mine for them: the nuggets are scattered on the ground waiting to be picked up. As the rich red earth indicates, the country is iron rich, and sometimes even a whole hill might be made of nothing but iron-rich ore. In its turn, the iron ore yields secondary deposits of its related metals, nickel, cobalt and manganese.

Most of all, Element Seventy-Nine, a relatively unreactive transition metal with a density nearly twenty times that of water, functionally useless for most normally assigned purposes of metals, is obtained in relative plenty from mines in the two Howondaland colonies.

The Carp Colony and the Free State of Oranges, two of the three component states of the Union of Rimwards Howondaland, co-operate in their exports to Ankh-Morpork, which on the fastest available ships now take no more than six weeks, five if the winds are favourable.

In Ankh-Morpork, the supplies of Element 79 and compressed jet are assayed and brokered in part exchange for the goods the URH needs, which are mainly military weapons and factory tools. Any surplus is banked at the rock-solid Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, the dependable Old Lady of Discworld finance.

As other eyes are watching and others also covet the cargo of heat-treated coal and the uselessly soft unreactive transition metal, the shipments are made under great security and are strongly guarded.

By volume, the greater part of the cargo of the ship _De Vliegende Howandalaander _is composed of citric fruit and grapes. The hold full of oranges are picked just at the moment their green begins to turn to orange, so that the fruit continues to ripen during the sea voyage and is coming to perfect condition as it reaches the grocery markets in Ankh-Morpork, Quirm and Pseudopolis.

One sub-section of the hold, placed absolutely centrally so that the heavy, dense, metal inside, (that which was discreetly loaded at night in conditions of great secrecy), does not spoil the trim of the ship, is tightly locked and guarded.

The ship carries far more crew than are strictly needed to ensure the smooth running of the vessel. Many of the supercargo hands are bronzed, muscular and look at the world through slitted mistrustful eyes. However, one is a slender, boyish, young woman of twenty with pale redhead's skin, spattered with freckles. Her hair is magnificently Titian, long red-gold tresses currently bound in a pony-tail, she is taking her ease on deck, reading her great-grandmother's journal, an account of a previous visit to Ankh-Morpork over a hundred years before.

Two typically Klatchian vessels are keeping station, manned by White Howondolandian prize crews. These will be sold off as prizes once in Ankh, and the receipts shared among the crew as a bonus.

Some of the woodwork along the uppers of the prize ships is splintered and broken. This is testimony to the defensive weaponry this otherwise inoffensive looking cargo ship is carrying, concealed along its upper deck. So far, two lots of Klatchian pirates have made a fatal miscalculation.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes, a daughter of a prominent colonial family and a national heroine, smiles contentedly and basks in the sun.

Rimwards Howondaland, depressed at a military defeat at the hands of the old enemy, had been overjoyed with her. She became a a national heroine, receiving a large cash bounty and - at least in public - the thanks of a grateful _Staadt. _

But there are wheels within wheels. There are always wheels within wheels.

The Howondaland bureau of the Guild of Assassins, who had been negotiating for the contract to inhume the warlord, wrote a long report home in which the name of Johanna Smith-Rhodes figured heavily.

The Staadt's goverment pondered hard on the implications of a member of the former colonial rulers, the Smith-Rhodes family, rising to national prominence and popularity, and considered the consequences of her getting it into her head to enter politics.

The Army had busted her back down to Ensign, the lowest commissioned rank, for disobeying orders. It also posted her from the Scouts, her active-service kommando, to the base depot at Piemburg to count blankets and water bottles. Philosophically, she let her hair start to grow back - her mother had wept to see it shorn. On her weekends and leaves, she took every opportunity to get out into the veldt and watch the wildlife, where the air was clean and there were no verdammte people, white or bleck. Then she got her final posting before her term in the Army was up:

"You will report to the ship _De Vliegende Howondalaandian _as part of its marine escort. You will be tasked with keeping the ship secure and safe from pirate attack on its voyage to Ankh-Morpork. You will be paid off in Ankh-Morpork and will be formally discharged from the Armed Forces with the rank of Liutnant at our Embassy, on Scoone Avenue in Ankh. A return ticket will be provided by the Staadt to enable you to return home in civilian behalf of the Bureau of Defence, I thank you for your loyal service..."

So far it has been a lively voyage. She was wrong to think five weeks at sea would be boring!

She wonders what Ankh-Morpork would bring.

Some weeks later, her share of the prize money in a secure purse, Johanna was indulging in a little personal time browsing the shops, finding out what styles were currently in fashion in the heart of the civilized world. There was no going anywhere until the _Vligende _had loaded its full cargo from Burleigh and Stringinthearm, and in any case, she'd promised her mother she'd at least _try_ to look like a lady on those occasions that called for it. While more at home in bush hat, safari shorts and khaki tunic, Johanna had to admit that dressing up and all the frilly girly things could be fun, sometimes.

Distracted by the shop window display, she failed to notice the silent figures that moved into position around her… while a last-minute flying kick doubled one up with an audible _oomph!,_ the rest were too close, she couldn't get to her _sjaembok_.. a hand at her mouth holding a pad of linen… she tried to struggle, but it was no use. Her last conscious thought was _That green dress was nice, but it'd never go with my hair. _Then blackness.

Johanna awoke, sitting in a chair facing a desk flanked by a black granite pillar at each corner. She noticed an even, roughly oval, hole in the nearest pillar, which seemed to go all the way through it.

He man behind the desk looked like a mild-mannered priest or a kindly schoolteacher. Next to him was a rather over-painted woman who looked like an elderly courtesan. To Johanna's tastes, she had _far_ too many rings on her fingers. Then she remembered one of the purposes big heavy rings could be put to, and wondered how heavy a punch the woman might throw. Then memory set in.

"Who the HELL ere you and WHY heve you brought me here? Where IS this?"

"You are in the Assassins' Guild on Filigree Street." the mild-mannered clergyman said. "You were brought here because your name has been made known to us. We have a certain proposition to put to you, Miss Smith-Rhodes".

"You can bleddy well get me beck to my ship!" Johanna demanded. "I hev diplomatic imunity!" It was a desperate ploy.

"You don't. We checked."

Johanna groped at her right hip for a more tangible argument. It wasn't there. She suddenly felt naked.

The high-class prostitute lifted Johanna's _sjaembok_ into the air.

"A different sort of weapon" she said, lazily snapping it out. "But I can see it would be exceedingly effective!"

Twelve feet of rhinoceros-hide whip unfolded. To Johanna's consternation, a candle some twelve feet from the woman fell out of its holder, neatly split into two. She nodded, appreciative despite herself; OK, so she hadn't split it into two _vertically_, as Johanna could manage, but even breaking it at all, first try, was impressive.

The woman recoiled the whip and handed it back to Johanna. Corsetry creaked as she moved.

"I learnt that trick from a Seamstress I know. Whips were her specialty" she remarked. "I believe your people call this weapon a _sjaembok?_"

"Thet word will do." Johanna agreed, retrieving her weapon with a word of thanks – it was only courteous, after all. She found herself drawn into conversation with her captors.

"Strictly speaking, this is not a sjaembok. The classic sjaembok is only, at most, four feet long. We use it for enimel herding end… internel police duties, public order end the like. My weapon is more of a _litupa_, perheps in Morporkian a bullwhip or a blecksnake. But to the world outside we all cerry sjaemboks. So a sjaembok this must be."

Johanna knew she could have cut her way out of there. But it was still an unfamiliar building, in an unfamiliar city, CITIES were unfamiliar to her, for goodness sake, she was a country girl. And that she'd been given her primary weapon back suggested these people were far too sure of themselves… she caught a glimpse of reflected movement in a polished wood surface. A male figure, behind her, holding a crossbow in a loose high port. She nodded thanks, and hung her whip at her belt.

"We wish you no harm." the man repeated. "I'm Lord Downey. Master of the Assassins' Guild. This is my associate, Lady T'malia. As I said, we have a proposition for you."

Downey spoke about the, ah, financial loss she'd incurred to the Guild's bureau in Pratoria last year. We had been researching an inhumation, and were on the point of dispatching a team of associates to perform a contract on behalf of your Government, in the hope all such future business requiring skill and stealth and confidentiality be vested in us. Your Boor kommandos are such a blunt instrument in these circumstances, aren't they?

"And then we realized a gifted amateur had carried out a freelance operation against the intended inhumee. She attacked his kraal by night, deep in his own country, under cover of a thunderstorm, and inhumed the client together with his immediate family. Now for such an _inhumation with extreme prejudice_, we would have charged your Government fifty thoudsand gold _Burgerrands_. You short-changed yourself by accepting twenty-five thousand. Surprised? Then perhaps you should take it up with Mijnheer Rothschild, your finance minister."

Downey leaned back in his chair. "You cost us a lot of money, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Now as I see it, there are two choices."

"The sensible thing is that you join us." T'Malia said. "You have a natural talent for this trade, my dear! Such nerve and style!"

"End if I refuse?"

"We rather hope it won't come to that" Downey said, briskly.

"We will of course give you time to decide. You will remain as a guest of the Guild during this period. Please accept our apologies, but we consider it wise to take your whip into custody during that period. You will have the freedom of the Guild and guides will be assigned to you, for your comfort and convenience. You may talk to who you like and ask whatever questions you like. They will be answered openly and honestly."

Johanna let herself be disarmed and taken to a light airy room on an upper floor of the building. She was planning an escape, but a little voice was saying: your great-grandparents had dealings with this place in the 1800's. Grand-ouma talks about it in her journal. It's a college teaching all sorts of ways of fighting, killing, getting in and out by stealth. And they're offering to teach me and make me one of them? I do not like the alternative. Even if I escape, these are the sort of methodical bastards who'll come after me. And find me. And kill me. Better I sign up, send a letter home saying I'm staying for a year or so? And what is the alternative? Marriage to some old Boor farmer with chronic BO and a red neck? _Ag!_ Being the breeder of as many children as my body can stand? _Ag, ag! My horizons will shrink to Children, kitchen and church. But I am beginning to see a world outside Howondaland! A world with more possibilities!"_

She fell asleep, still in two minds.

Some years later, Johanna put all the pieces together and realised she'd been stitched up. Her government didn't want her in Howondaland - she was too dangerously popular after her exploit. The Guild of Assassins, however, did want her - she had stolen one of its contracts and, to add insult to injury, had received payment for what the Guild described as "_an act of inhumation with VERY extreme prejudice_". She had been sent here to be out of sight, out of mind, by a Staadt that had no intention of letting her cash in her return boat ticket home. Despite the loud protests of her uncle, the Howondalandian Ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, it was all a done deal between her government and the Guild.

But it would take her several years and a series of dissillusionments with nearly everything she had been taught to believe in, before this uncomfortable truth emerged.

The next day her guide, a personable young Assassin called Matthew Ludorum, took her to the Black Library. There were more books here than she'd ever seen in one place before. And they all dealt with…

"_Oh, my!"_

This was meat and drink to both her academic mind and her combative side. Johanna had spent a lot of time in the veldt, both while at school and during her inactive service in Piemburg, absorbed in watching the wildlife and reading all she could about the lives and habits of Howondalandian fauna. In fact, she had seriously considered a zoology degree at Witwatersrand after her Army service was up. But now, this appeared to be an impossibility; she'd have to make the best of things here. Fortunately, the Black Library contained shelves and shelves of zoologically related books and material.**(1)** She spent the rest of the day there just reading.

Then she asked to see Downey again.

"I eccept." she said, quietly. "Teach me what you know."

"Good!" Downey said. "I knew you would! Welcome to the Guild!"

She signed the forms. Then asked for the means to write a few letters home.

* * *

**(1) **The more _**specialized**_ zoology, mainly, that the Guild took a keen professional interest in for what it could teach about stalking, hunting, making a kill, or concerning issues of venom and means of delivering it to the client. Johanna would go on to make this her own area of Guild expertise.


	13. Rats in a maze: Jocasta and Emilia

Just as Alice and Johanna and fifty-seven other Examiners were taking station around the city, activity back at the Guild was building up to a new peak. This time around, a total of one hundred and eighty-four Upper Sixth pupils, Candidates for the final Exam, are being organized and balloted to fairly decide routes and starting times.

As before, a white ball denotes a route which at least begins Overground. A black ball denotes a route which will at least begin Underground. The associated number dictates the Candidate's starting time. If eight candidates at a time are started off at ten minute intervals from one of sixteen possible starting points, the very last batch will be leaving in three hours and forty minutes' time. For some, it will be an excruciatingly long wait: for others, a chance for three hours more last-minute preparation time.

Everything has been meticulously computed and plotted out. Each Candidate will be vectored through four out of fifty-nine checkpoints and be interviewed by four disparate members of the teaching faculty. Two hours have been allotted for the Test, including four _vivat voce_ sessions of approximately ten minutes.

If the Candidates start running at the appropriately significant time of midnight, all those who are fated to Pass will have returned to the guild by six am, to the hugs and relief of those who love and care for them, who will inevitably be waiting for news in the courtyard and outside on Filigree Street. (Guild servants have been ordered to circulate hot drinks and refreshments for their comfort). Even then, it's still only a conditional pass: results of the Oral Exams are yet to be collated and totalled. Any candidate performing well on the practical skills – ie, one who comes back alive – who has performed badly on the theory, will then be offered a last chance to resit the oral exam.

Only a select few know what happens to the Fails. However, Lord Downey has recently been known to have been in heated debate with Vetinari and Lady de Meserole. This year, a _different_ scheme may be trialed for the first time.

Two such candidates are preparing in their room. As Upper Sixth girls, they have progressed from arrival at the age of eleven, where First Year bods sleep thirty to a dorm in a cold, Spartan, attic. They have passed through smaller dormitories with each succeeding year, and now in their final year are privileged to share a double study bedroom with a chosen close friend.

Emilia Mountjoy-Standish relaxed back onto the bed, and watched as Jocasta Wiggs deliberated over what to wear. In other worlds, seventeen and eighteen year old girls agonise over what to wear to parties and nights out and worriedly solicit the opinion of their friends as to the merits of one style over another, of a low-cut top versus a high hem. Here, the principle is broadly similar – _what can I wear that will have the most impact on a man?_ – but the application is different. The phrase _This will __**really**__ slay the boys!_ has a different application in Alice Band's Tump House, as it does in Raven House (Miss Smith-Rhodes), Black Widow House (Madame les Deux-Epées) and Scorpion House (Lady T'Malia).

Jocasta nervously turned and twisted, observing herself from as many angles as possible in the full length mirror.

"I'd leave the sword, Cass." Emilia advised her. "You drew Under, remember? A sword isn't an underground weapon. It'll get caught up and snagged if you've got any narrow passages to drainhole through. And if you miss your man and hit a stone wall with it, you'll break it. No room for swordplay down there. Why do you think the Dwarves aren't a sword culture?"

"Yes, but what if I draw old Two-Swords?" Jocasta pointed out. You know what she thinks about a properly dressed Assassin having a sword with her at all times. She'll mark me down straight away!"

"She would, wouldn't she? But would you ever catch her doing anything Under, if she has a free choice? Two-Swords is like a cat, wherever you throw her, she'll land on her feet. Then she'll claw your eyes out for spite and settle down to a nice bowl of cream. There's _always_ a bowl of cream in it for Two-Swords! Besides, there's nearly sixty purple sashes out there, you'll only see four of them. That's a one in fifteen chance, isn't it? Leave the sword. It'll get in your way!"

Jocasta reluctantly unbuckled her sword belt. Unburdened of its weight, she felt lighter and better balanced.

"It beats me how you can stay so calm!" she burst out.

Emilia shrugged. "I get it from my dad, I suppose. He once told me about the Glorious Revolution, where that man Keel was leading the rebels and running rings round him. At the same time he had a foul vicious tick called Carcer threatening all sorts of Hell if the Army didn't pull its finger out. Dad said when he realized it couldn't get any worse, he'd never felt calmer nor more serene in his life. It was like taking drugs, he said. When Snapcase got inhumed and he realized it was all over – but nobody was going to be cashiered or demoted or court-martialled, the new administration wanted it cleared up with minimal fuss – the sense of relief made him feel like he'd been sentenced to death and reprieved. **(1)** Two guesses as to how I feel right now!"

"Errr… by any chance, and you realize I'm only guessing here, all calm and relaxed and floaty, as if you've been taking drugs?" Jocasta hazarded.

"Give that girl a coconut!" Emilia said, swinging her legs off the bed.

"Now let's run through our checklist of essentials, shall we? Lockpicks."

"Lockpicks"

"Throwing knives, standard set"

"Throwing knives, standard set"

"Blowpipes"

"Blowpipes"

"Set of fast-acting antidotes to common poisons"

"Check"

This went on for some time.

"Millie!" Jocasta suddenly moaned. "You're going so much sooner than I am!"

"Can't be helped. I drew White Three. That means I run at midnight. You drew Black ninety-One. That puts you in the very last group of runners at, oooh, three-forty."

"You'll be back long before I even start. But I won't know for sure because…"

"..those of you who complete the course and return while there are still candidates at the tail-end waiting to depart will be rigorously segregated and directed to a temporary holding area apart from the departure zone." Millie said, aping Lord Downey's directions. "How do you think I'm going to feel? I'll be a licenced Assassin and bursting to tell everyone, but just because I run first and get back between two and half-past, that leaves over an hour for me to be in limbo!"

"I know. And we won't properly see each other again until way after six in the morning!" Jocasta almost wailed.

Millie shrugged. "Shape up, kiddo. We may **_never_** see each other again, full stop. But we knew the risks when we joined up."

They looked at each other, thoughtfully and with love.

"It's been a great seven years. With you. Miss Band. Everyone. But mainly with you. Even if I don't come back, and believe me I fully intend to, I want to say I've never wanted it any other way. I don't regret a **thing**, Cass. "

The call in the yard and corridor went out for "First eight for the Run to assemble in the courtyard! Midnight runners, you have five minutes. Five minutes."

Jocasta and Emilia kissed, for what might have been their last time. For the past two years they have been kissing each other quite a lot, and sharing a bedroom for the last year has been a blessed bonus.

"Imagine Miss Smith-Rhodes doing this?" Cass murmured. Millie responded, like a mantra:

"Sex is whet Rimwerds Howondalendians cerry coal in!"

They giggled over the old shared joke, and kissed again.

"See you in the morning, Cass. Promise."

Millie stepped out into the hall, and the door closed behind her.

Jocasta felt alone and forlorn. She settled down to three hours' wait. She was Running in the last, the twenty-third, group.

______________

1 See "_**Night Watch"**_


	14. The Third Degree

_A rewrite. Emmanuelle's secret is revealed. _

Let us flash back eight years to where Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées has been accosted by a group of henchtrolls outside the Fools' Guild. Her spirits are low because of the manner of her rejection for membership of the Seamstresses' Guild, however gently Rosie Palm handled it, and despite the offer of a door still being open for her at a later date. And the reason for her rejection still rankles.

_Nom d'une biche! That bloody boy!_ She fumes. _He most probably caught his intimate menagerie through fooling around with some diseased sale con of a parlour maid, and all the time he professes love for me and me alone! _

Walled in by a troll at each corner, she walked on, head high, trying to look like the sort of woman of means who can afford to pay for hired silicon muscle, as if she is the mistress and not the prisoner.

She was led to the Street of the Engravers. She had a second's grace to read the name over the shop – Cripslock – and was ushered in by her escort, who fall in behind her.

"Downstairs" a troll voice grated.

She took the stone stair down to a working engraver's shop, with mysterious acrid chemical fumes in the air. On a large stone slab something was chained, and feebly moving, under a tarpaulin. It is making mumbling noises. Fearful mumbling noises. A voice behind her said

"T'ree of you boys, disappear! Malachite, stay wid' der lady."

"Yes, Mr. Chrysophrase."

Emmanuelle rounded on the city's leading criminal troll in despairing fury.

"I still have three days!" she hissed, trying to keep despair out of her voice.

Chrysophrase, as always radiating smoothness, as if his silicon skin were polished every morning, dressed in an immaculately tailored suit modeled on that favoured by humans, diamond gleaming from fingers and cuffs and tiepin, smiled back at her. He was sitting quite comfortably with a female troll standing behind him, massaging his neck. He laughed, like the rattling of stones that presages an avalanche.

"And tell me where a lady wit' no resources can get me my hundred t'ousand dollars from in t'ree days. I am hearing dat not even der Seamstresses Guild wants to take you, and I reckon dat was your last chance."

He paused for exactly the right length of time to let it sink in, and continued.

"Dat's a shame, as I is not an unreasonable troll, and Rosie, she good lady, she has had experience before of negociating with me on behalf of young women who is needing to pay a debt off to me. I respect dat woman and we could have come to an amicable agreement, where nobody needing to have cosmetic surgery with or without benefit of Igor."

He relaxed into the troll female's massaging paws.

"Take Dolomita here, she Seamstress. I have account with Rosie and she know _exactly_ what a troll of means and taste appreciate in a female. When my busy schedule allow for fun and games, I talk to Rosie, she send me a Seamstress. We relax, I treat female like real lady, she leave the next day wid' der bonus. I know how it work. Just a shame Rosie couldn't make it work for you."

Emmanuelle had to admit that there was rubbing it in, and there was rubbing it in. This was rubbing it in, emphasizing that a troll female could be a Seamstress while she had been turned down…

"Don't take it so bad, honey" the female troll advised her. "There a kind of burrowing rock-mite dat trolls can catch if they ain't clean or careful. It not just human females dat get it."

_Grrrrrrrr!_

Emmanuelle found her teeth grating.

"We call dem _lobsters_." Chysoprase said, dismissively "But we in one of dem drift t'ings here. You owe me a hundred t'ousand. Now I is realistic. I don't _need_ anudder hundred t'ousand, not straight away. Dat only small change. I could say, OK, we scrub debt, you walk away free woman and not owing me an elim, just you never gamble in my casino again, you barred for life."

The troll paused again and studied Emmanuelle's face.

"Dat is, I _could_ say dat. But what happen next? People say Chrysophrase losing his grip, he goin' soft, he not responding appropriately to people showin' him disrespect."

The troll stood up.

"Let me show you somet'in'." He beckoned a henchtroll forwards.

"Give him some daylight, boys!"

The tarpaulin was whisked aside to reveal a very frightened troll who had been chained to the stone slab by both wrists and ankles. He had also been gagged. Emmanuelle reflected that she was now one of very few humans to have seen what goes on underneath the obligatory troll loincloth, as the creature was completely naked.

_Mes dieux! Even as terrified as I feel inside, it really is true what they whisper about trolls: much bigger than human males! _

"Get dat Mr. Cripslock wit' der stuff." the troll crimelord ordered. The henchtroll knuckled off.

Chrysophrase stood smiling at the chained troll for some moments. Then he said

"You make me sad, Substrate. You know I is a peacelovin' troll and a troll of faith in the honesty of other trolls. But you is _disrespectful_, Substrate. And where would I be as a man of honour in the community if I allow _disrespect_, huh? This gonna _hurt_ me, Substrate."

An old human male was bundled into the cellar. He held a brown glass carboy gingerly in thick leather gloves. He stopped short on seeing Emmanuelle.

"This ain't no part of the agreement, sir!" he burst out. "When I let you use the cellar for little chats with other trolls, I didn't mean for you to bring a human woman here for…"

"Peace, my friend!" Chrysophrase boomed. "You is a good friend to me, Mr. Cripslock, and I look after my friends. Is dat nosy young woman of yours…"

"Staying with her aunt, sir, as usual."

"Lovely girl, Sacharissa. A lovely girl. But too keen to push her nose where it shouldn't go. If dere a career out dere in bein' nosy, she'll find it."

Chrysophrase beckoned his henchtroll, who gingerly took the carboy. An acrid odour arose as he uncorked it. All the trolls in the room leaned forward, as if savouring the smell of roses.

Emmanuelle remembered Rosie Palm's warning about trolls and acid. Engravers used acid.

"No. No, no, no…" she moaned, and tried to look away.

Dolomita, the troll seamstress, came up behind her and took her in firm but gentle hands.

"Mr. Chrysophrase want you to look" the troll woman said. "We don't want to disappoint Mr. Chrysophrase."

Emmanuelle looked. Heard the troll scream. The thrashing of the chains as it writhed. Smelt the effect of the strong acid on troll-hide. _Saw_ the effect of the acid on the troll-hide. And would have fainted, were it not for the strong hands holding her up.

"And dat only one little teeny dribble." Chrysophrase remarked.

He turned to Emmanuelle.

"I been givin' thought as to how you can repay my hunderd t'ousand." he said. The henchtroll stepped forward with the syringe he had been using to drip acid on the unfortunate troll on the slab.

"Sir! This is going too far!" Cripslock protested. "Not on the girl! Please!"

"I'll remember you said that, mon vieux!" Emmanuelle said, shaking with fear.

The Alpha Troll patted Cripslock's back with a gentle hand.

"You hear about the Omnian Inquisition? What you _humans_ devised so as to show other humans the error of their ways? We trolls, we come to the city, we _learn_ from you."

He turned to Emmanuelle.

"I t'ink I got a position for you in my business. You earn that money pretty quick doing… jobs… for me. You do me a hundred t'ousand's wort' of jobs, we say the debt is clear and your contract is finished, you can go your way again, you can also call Chrysophrase a friend and he will help you if you call for his help, like one of der family. I hear as how you is good wit' swords and blades?"

She nodded, resignedly. "Please… that poor creature on the slab. Hasn't he suffered enough?"

Chrysophrase turned back to his henchtroll. "Fill a beaker wit' dat acid."

And then to Emmanuelle again: "Don't flinch, this ain't meant for you. From what clever people read to me, I hear the Omnian Inquisition had t'ree levels to it. Der t'ree degrees. Degree one, der first degree, is where you show somebody the tools and der equipment and you explain what it for, what it do to the body. Then dat person left to think for a while, as to what their best course of action. Den if dey prove stubborn, you take them back to the dreadful place and let them see the tools bein' used on somebody else. Dat der second degree."

The troll nodded at the unfortunate Substrate.

"Some human religions believe in der circumcision. You know what dat is? Dat when the boy sacrifices the skin on the end of his _wikwak_ to prove his devotion to der God. Normally der priest use a very sharp knife. But very sharp knife don't work on troll. It go blunt. So we circumcise you, Substrate. We dip you _wikwak_ into acid and let it burn skin away. We learn so much from humans, about der civilization and der essential humanity!"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?" screamed Emmanuelle, her nerve gone. Substrate was also screaming through his gag.

"You know, this your lucky day, Substrate. I not want to distress a lady. So you not circumcised today. But tomorrow, if I not see that Slab you try to cheat me out of! Unchain him, let him go. But if he try to cheat me again and if he can't replace der merchandise, he back on this slab!"

The hapless troll was unchained and helped to his feet. Chrysophrase gave his face a gentle caress on the cheek.

"Remember, Substrate. Half a pound of Slab wit' der capital "S", or you back on this slab wit' der lower-case "s". Now say thank you to the lady who asked for me to be merciful to you, you owe her too!"

The troll left quickly, after stammering "thank yous". A distant door slammed and running feet were heard in the street.

"You not want me to tell you what der t'ird degree is?" Chrysophrase asked. She shook her head.

"That's when the prisoner proves so obdurate in their heresy that it is no longer sufficient to show them the instruments, nor to force them to witness use of the instruments on others. The Third Degree is when the games and the threats are over, and the instruments are used on you." She said, dully, remembering a long-ago history lesson.

"You clever girl. I need clever girl like you to work for me. You see, sometimes warning people ain't enough. Sometimes you need to make a _real_ example. What der Assassins call _inhuming_."

"you mean… why not get the Assassins to do it for you, if you need it?"

"I go to the Guild, they charge a disrespectful amount of money. Also, people not get message that this person seriously disrespected Chrysophrase. And some people will think: he going soft. He cannot deal with disrespectful people himself, he gets Assassins to do it for him, he getting weak. And in dis line of business I can't afford dat."

The troll crime lord paused and looked shrewdly at Emmanuelle.

"Besides. In seekin' to engage you, I'm getting somebody who was trained by the Assassins. Dat is _gold _to me!"

She froze. An icy finger traced down her spine. _He knew her secret!_ As she opened her mouth to bluff it out, she heard the troll say

"It too late to say "what you mean?" and pretend to be ignorant. A little birdie tell me dat once upponna time, dere was a student at der Assassins' School. He was from Quirm. He was good wit der sword. He came from nowhere but der school took him in as a pupil. And just before he take his final exam, he disappeared. Dere was no trace and nobody know what happened to him. A friend, him good at findin' things out, found me a class list for Viper House. One dat had not been doctored to look as if dis mystery pupil never had been. And he discover this pupil was called Emmanuel-Martin de Jeannedarc.

At same time, young girl name of Emmanuelle-Marie Les Deux-Épées, she disappear completely from Quirm, no trace. Now dis could have been one of dem coin-see-dence fings, but…"

"Enough!" said Emmanuelle, calling a halt to the agony. "You are right. For four years I was Emmanuel-Martin de Jeannedarc." She made a point of enunciating the name in correct Quirmian. She knew it was stupid and petty and the pronunciation had been good, by troll standards, but she could not help herself.

"I masqueraded as a boy to attend the Guild school. My _patron_ paid the fees. I was not fully in my adult body then and the deception was possible in a way it is not now. It was only by accursed bad luck that I was found out. They quietly expelled me so as not to bring disgrace or laughter on themselves**."(1)****1**

Chrysophrase grinned.

"Dat show style! Dat resourceful! I could use you!"

"You have trolls. Why not use _them_?" she asked.

" So I send trolls in . Der Watch not stupid. They see someone, disrespectful to Chrysophrase one night, killed by troll the next, they add two and two and make _many_. Der Watch, dey getting' good dese days. And dey have troll sergeant. He careful to nod and show respect if we meet, but Detritus, him copper to his core. I can't buy or bend his deeper respect. Him worryin' me."

The troll paused. "And humans disrespect me too. This grieves me. I think about this and I realise I need human enforcer to take my message to other humans and say "Mr. Chrysophrase, him very upset!" just before they have experience of Death standin' near them."

"So you want me to be your… contract killer."

"You ruthless woman. Most of time, only thing that matter to you is you and you not give a coprolite about others. You like.. human animal. Go miouw. Not give a coprolite about others if it warm and well fed and dry and gets lotsa sex. You a cat among women. You will kill for me if it avoid the T'ird Degree for you. And every time you take the message that I am upset, it so much more off your debt to me. What you say?"

Emmanuelle considered.

"The Guild charges at least ten thousand. More often twenty or higher. I'll undercut Guild prices for you but there _must_ be an end to it, and transparent accounting. I do not wish to see interest added on all the time, so that I never quite clear the debt, and find myself working for you until the end of my life."

"As you work for me, I make it interest-free loan of a hundred t'ousand dat you repay. We price each job , we agree on a price, dat lowers the debt each time. Then when nothing more to pay, you released from contract, and you have the friendship of Chrysophrase."

"Done!" Emmanuelle said. They shook hands.

* * *

She arrived home, emotionally and mentally exhausted. She was shocked her secret was out. She wondered if the Guild had recognised her, technically not an Assassin but trained by them all the same. The horrible thought sprang up unbidden that if caught performing unlicenced killings, the Guild would have even less mercy than she might otherwise expect.

At least the Troll was off her back, but at what price? And if the Guild found out she was working freelance, what would they do?

_You get out of one hole by digging an even deeper one. At this rate, I'll be seeing daylight on the other side of the Disc! _

And he was there. The noble lover, the one who four days ago had been professing undying love whilst passing on a minor sexually transmitted disease. He was cold, brusque, and to the point.

"My father has ordered me to give you up. Happily, as you were seen signing up with the Seamstresses' Guild, this will not be a problem."

"Oh, _vraiment_? And where are the protestations of love, that I am the other half of your life, that you cannot do without me?"

"That was before you were seen to be a common whore!" he added, coldly.

Emmanuelle screamed.

"_Espèce de bâtarde! Sale con!"_ she screamed, punching him as hard as she possibly could. He staggered back.

"You gave me the crabs, you filthy unwashed animal!"

"And that's the other thing…" he muttered. "You realize the embarrassment your little pets caused me? Bloody Quirmian women, can't tell soap from cheese…"

She hit him again, screaming "Rupert Rust, you wet shit of a man!", and this time he had the grace to fall over unconscious, smashing a small table.

"I am insulted. If anything, I am a most _uncommon _whore!" she said to his still body.

Breathing heavily, she took the indelible pencil used for marking luggage, and wrote on his forehead:

**Attention, ladies! I have many pubic lice! **

and then dragged him to the street by his ankles. Here, she paid a cab driver to take him to the Rust family mansion. Aware of one job well done, she went back inside to await the beginning of her new life as contract killer for the Breccia.

* * *

1 **(1) **See my story _**The Only One? **_This expands on Emmanuelle's early life and her canonical years of subterfuge at the Guild School.


	15. Emilia's Run

"Candidates. You will go on the sound of the Guild clock chiming the hour."

The first eight were in the courtyard of the Guild, each facing one of the eight directions of the Disc compass. Emilia Mountjoy- Standish is at Hubwards, which means she is to leave via the front gate. She is aware of Dominica La Diabla on her left, and of Lucinda Rust on her right. She would bet a small sum on Lucinda becoming a Fail: she is a typical product of the Rust family, whose arrogance and over-confidence are in inverse proportion to their intelligence and ability. Dominica, she knows, is from the bull-running country out on the Vieux River down towards Genua and Brindisi. She has the natural _hauteur_ of the _Hidalga, _and with good reason.

_She'll pass. Cowbag._

The Teacher's Guild clock heralded the cacophony of noise that signals midnight. The eight Candidates waited, through the twelve deadly silences of the university bell Old Tom, for the very last clock of all – their own – to toll out the twelve sonorous peals that told somebody, somewhere, the time was now Too Late. She hoped it wouldn't be for her.

And, without fuss or haste, they were off. The candidates for Under were being directed to their entry points to the Undercity: a senior Assassin called "Black-One!" and indicated an otherwise anonymous drain cover. Emilia followed the directed exit point for White-Three: not, under any circumstances, _through_ the Guild gates, but _over_ them. As she climbed, Emilia wondered what might have happened if she had walked through the gates. An immediate Fail, she supposed. From a higher vantage point, she scanned Filigree Street . Was that a gleam of darkened metal in the shadow there, watching the gates? She shrugged it away and carried on the climb, having memorized the first leg of the route. This would take her to her first checkpoint: the invigilator would then either give her a next stage to memorise, or tell her where her next checkpoint would be, leaving her free to plan her own route.

Emilia felt the exultation of edificeering. The heights, the breeze in her hair, the freedom of the high places…. _Knock it off, _she told herself. _Tonight it's as serious as it ever gets. You don't know what they've got planned for you to keep you on your toes. There are all manner of little surprises, they change randomly from year to year, so reading old exam reports doesn't help, and they keep introducing new ones. Just don't let yourself be surprised!_

To her heightened eyes, something seemed wrong with the plank-bridge that normally spanned Wixon's Alley. It was there, where it always had been, but… _somebody's moved it lately. They just haven't put it back in exactly the same place. You can see the paler, less dirty, stone where it used to sit. _

She crouched and regarded it some more, then thought_ That's fair. They're giving me just enough of a chance to see it's been moved. If I miss an obvious clue like that, I deserve to Fail myself, from…. About ninety feet up onto hard cobbles. _

She prepared and threw a grapple, testing it for strength and securing it with a slip-knot on her own side. Clutching the doubled length of rope that she needed on the other side, she discreetly rope-crawled across, tugging hard on the free length to release the slip-knot and so recover the rope. Recoiling it and slipping it over her shoulder, she moved on, prickling hairs on the nape of her neck telling her she was not alone.

_Let's see… the rooftop of the temple of the Troll Gods, Clay Lane. _

She now recognized the mis-shapen monolithic things around her as Troll sculpture, devotional statues of their Gods.

She took a deep breath.

"Sir. I am here!"

One of the misshapen monolithic rocks shuddered, stepped forward, and doffed its disguise. The familiar hunchbacked shape was hardly more comforting.

"Very vell." said the voice of Doctor Graumunchen (Languages Dept: Überwaldean, Borogravian and Zlobenian).

"Candidate, you vill have zer goodness to identify yourself!"

"White, Three" Emilia called, using her issued code number.

"Vhich is Miss Mountjoy-Standish, Emilia. _Nicht wahr_?"

"_Ich heisse Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, ja_"

"_Alles in ordning._ We begin, shall we?"

The hunchbacked Assassin held up a card. Light glinted from his monocle.

"Sir, that is Witch-sign for _Female resident. Middle-aged widow. She is hungry for psychic readings of all kinds. She is actively seeking news of her next husband. Pays generously."_

"Sehr gut."

A tick on the clipboard, the card is replaced.

"Name for me the culturally identifying veapons of five different races on the Disc."

"The prospecting axe of the Dwarfs. The _knobkerrie_ of the Kwa'Zulu. The short-hafted stabbing _assegai_ of the Bantustan. (_Thank you, miss Smith-Rhodes!) _The flint-tipped arrow of the Elves…." Emilia dried up.

"That is only four, miss Mountjoy-Standish!" Graumunchen prompted her. She swallowed and her mouth dried. _Think, girl! Überwald… human… Graumunchen's face… those triangular scars… ah!_

"The ritual _schlange_ sword of the Überwaldean university duelling societies. Sir!"

Nod, tick.

"Are these permissible to the Assassin?"

"Automatically, sir, only if the Assassin is also of that race and culture. Sometimes if the client is of a certain race and culture, it is considered a courtesy detail to inhume them with a culturally appropriate weapon. Or in extremis, if these are the only weapons to be found when needed. Otherwise we are expected to remain within the limits set by the Concordat."

Nod, tick.

"_Sehr gut, alles in befehl._ You are now to make your way to the roof of the Opera House, taking very great care to remain Overground at all times. Setting even one foot on the ground will be cause for a Fail. _Fahren sie auf_!"

Emilia set off again, from rooftop to cornice, climbing sometimes up, sometimes down, as the route unfolded in her mind's eye. One down, three to go. Plus her Emergency Drop – she wasn't complacent enough to think she'd spotted and avoided it just before her meeting with Graumunchen. There would be others.

She cautiously crossed the River, courtesy of the row of houses that had sprung up along the line of the Wood Bridge, and recconoitred the approach to the Opera House. At first the instruction looked impossible - there was so much open space between the Opera House and its surrounding buildings that approaching at ground level seemed inevitable. There was no clear way to bridge it.

Emilia circled from rooftop to rooftop, looking for away. Once she spotted another Candidate, heading towards his or her next checkpoint. _Am I as easy to spot as that?_

Then she saw it.

The coach park. Of course, the building was brightly lit up. Opera was being perpetrated inside. She had a chance to stay within the letter of her instructions, if not the spirit. The unwritten law of the concordat blazed in front of her eyes.

_Thou shalt not get caught. _

And what had Miss Band said to her last year, on the occasion Cass and herself had been caught out, and might have been expelled?

_I know what the school rules say. But as you get older, ladies, you will realize that there are no such things as rules: merely guidelines. But if I may advise you: Rule One is what it always was, which is _**Don't let yourselves be caught**_. It makes life so much simpler if the people who make the rules believe you are conforming to them. That's the benefit of hard personal experience."_

_OK. Here goes nothing. _

The coaches were packed closely together in the park. Little knots of drivers and teamsters were clustered , sharing a smoke or a cup of tea from a nearby stall. Only a few remained with their vehicles.

Millie leapt from the wall to the roof of a nearby coach, and thereafter from roof to roof. Whinnying horses, and a shout of "'Ere you, what's your game?" followed her. Millie paused just long enough to let her identity be guessed at, and a second, more nervous, voice called "Jed, Jed! Leave 'im be! The Assassins are out tonight, weren't you told? He'll only be the first! Listen, mate, if your coachwork gets damaged tonight, you bill the Guild. They're usually good about paying up."

Millie nodded, leapt across the last few coach roofs, and was under the wall of the Opera House. She leapt again, caught a drainpipe, and was soon lost to view in the light and shadow.

The Opera House side wall rates as a fairly easy climb, in normal edificeering terms. But this wasn't a normal night: instinct made Emilia pause before going for a new hand-hold behind a drainpipe cover. Something was there…. A few moments careful fumbling with an angled mirror revealed two or three ordinary dressmakers' pins, set into a wooden block and positioned just where fingers keen for their next secure grip would find them. They didn't need to be tipped with rare poison: the shock of clutching a handful of sharp pins might have been enough to provoke a fall.

Estimating she had only thirty or forty feet to the top, Emilia considered the brick surface of the wall. It would have just enough finger and toeholds, and she could see what was there.

She left the safe territory of the external piping behind, and sprinted for the top, finally falling over the parapet onto the roof.

Taking a few moments to get her breath back, she heard distant laughter and the chink of glasses. She cautiously approached, ducking behind a chimney-stack.

_Of all the nights for off-duty opera people to come outside for a drink! _she raged.

She heard a snatch of a conversation in Quirmian _un moment, s'il tu plais. Ah, je crois que j'ai une affaire! _

A dark shadow put down a glass, detached itself from the drinking group, and moved across towards Emilia.

_Damn, damn and blast, it's Two Swords! _

"Ma'am. I am here."

"So I perceive. Your number?"

"White, three"

"_Emilia, ma petite. Tu es prêt_?"

"_Oui, madame!"_

"Let's start." Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées readied her clip-board. She unclipped and held up a sign in the dim light. Emilia was ready.

"Alchemists' Guild pictogram, madame. It's a warning sign telling everybody that the liquid chemical essence stored here is corrosive, acidic, and its fumes are poisonous. Do not enter without the relevant protective clothing and a breathing mask."

_D'Accord. _(nod, tick).

"Name me three occasions where musical instruments have been used as tools of inhumation."

"In 1890, the Hon. Llewellyn Lloyd-Purdey of Viper House successfully rebuilt a Llamedosian Battle Harp according to the ancient original. Pointed at an enemy, the unique sonic properties can cause bowels to evacuate, walls to collapse, and in the lowest of all registers, localized earthquakes will…"

"_C'est l'une. Et deuxième?"_

"In 1745, posing as a traveling minstrel, Richard de Plombe of Scorpion House used his mandolin strings as a makeshift garotte…"

"_C'est deux. Et la troisième?"_

Emilia was temporarily stumped. But a memory surfaced. She grabbed at it.

"Nine years ago, an Assassin posed as a violinist with the house musicians at a restaurant. She had a one-shot crossbow concealed in her violin. Whilst serenading the client with a selection of Quirmian melodies, she activated the crossbow and shot him through the throat, then escaped in the resultant confusion".

There was a dead icy silence. Emilia wondered if she'd gone too far.

"You would not care to _identify_ this unique creature, this female assassin, would you? " Two Swords said, with a hint of cold silk in her voice.

Emilia took a deep breath.

"She is believed to be Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignarde les Deux-Epées, housemistress of Black Widow House."

A moment of still silence went on for ever. It was broken by an appreciative low laugh. And the noise of a tick against a clipboard.

"Your third question. Must a well-dressed Assassin wear a sword at all times?"

Emilia went cold. It was barely an hour, maybe less, since she'd raised this with Jocasta and asked what the chances were of drawing Two-Swords as examiner. Ah well, in for a penny…

"Only on those social or professional occasions that call for a sword, madame, and where not wearing one could be taken as bad manners or discourtesy."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, I believe I am."

"You would not like to reconsider, _peut-être_?"

"No, madame, I believe I am quoting Lord Downey himself when he was asked to give a ruling."

A reluctant third tick.

"_Eh bien_" she said, lowering the clipboard. "_Attends! Ecoutes_! White Three. Somewhere on this rooftop is a trapdoor. It leads to an otherwise disused staircase which has been forgotten by the Opera House and its staff. But it will take you into the opera cellars and from there into the Undercity. From the Undercity to the Grand Cul. You will navigate until you are underneath Scoone Avenue, An exit will be marked that will bring you out into the garden of a private residence on that road. There you shall encounter your next checkpoint. **Va't'en! Allez! Vite**!"

Emilia needed no encouragement. She wondered what demon had prompted her to needle Two-Swords with a memory of an inhumation she carried out when she was working for Chrysoprase the Troll.

But where was this dratted trapdoor? There were at least two or three. One, when lifted, led to a flight of stairs, but these were well-travelled and looked regularly swept. She moved onto the next. The same, and anyway it lifted too easily and silently to be long-disused. . And to the third… Ah-ha! The trapdoor sounded the first note of a creak, soon silenced by an application of spiral stairway beneath showed as a mass of paler-coloured dust undisturbed on either side of a darker pathway in the middle, which had been occasionally traveled but not that regularly. Emilia thought back to the big gossip a few years ago about the Opera Phantom and wondered if she was treading in his footsteps.

She moved quickly and carefully, staying to the well-beaten centre of each tread, passing boarded-up doorways at regular intervals, She passed… a full length mirror? A quick look showed that from this side it was glass, permitting a view into a singer's bedroom. Clothes were scattered in untidy clumps and a music stand was upright with a score in it, facing the mirror. Emiliia grinned and carried on down.. she noticed the dusty steps were coming to an abrupt end and everything was all dark… then her feet trod on nothing. She fell downwards and forwards, avoiding the drop into the void on her right. She saw the continuation of the steps flash in front of her, and by sheer good luck got her fingertips to it, twisting her body as she swung her other arm up and grabbed for dear life.

Dangling there, over the drop, she saw that a full half-spiral's worth of steps had been removed. The spiral continued below her: she could just see its continuation, ten feet below her feet. The drop to her right, down the empty space at the centre of the spiral, appeared to be seventy or eighty feet onto stone flags. Feeling the step she was holding onto creaking ominously under her fingers, Emilia made a very quick choice, and kicked herself into space, seeking to throw her weight backwards as she landed on the steps below, succeeding in barking her shins and knocking her breath out. She laid like a stranded fish for a while, gasping for breath, mouth opening and closing in pain and eyes streaming with tears.

But she was alive and had survived the Emergency Drop.

The passage down into the Undercity was uneventful. She passed several checkpoints on the way, called out her number, and was waved on: these were not for her. As she proceeded further up the Cloaca and underneath some of the richest real estate in the city of Ankh, she noted that Harry King's boys had been busy: they had been tracing secondary outlets back to the source and labeling them appropriately, prior to reconnecting and re-opening the drainage system for the people who could afford to pay for the privilege.

She shuddered at the implication, but realized her next stage in the route. At least she could walk upright in the tributary sewer labelled "_Scoone Avenue, Moon Pond Lane, Nap Hill_"… for now, anyway.

She tried to close her nose and eyes to what she was walking in, and carefully made her way upwards via the drains.

Twenty minutes later, feeling rank, grubby and stinking, Emilia could sense and smell fresh air on the other side of the manhole cover. Very, very, carefully, she lifted it just clear of its mounting and slid it to one side. Trying to show the lowest possible profile, she slid gratefully onto the grass and eased the cover back into place. Then a dark shadow moved towards a darker shadow still.

Emilia's senses were heightened. She had a suspicion that _somebody_ was out there looking for her. _Get under cover, girl! Then assess the situation! _

She felt, rather than heard, a large animal running up behind her. As it leapt for her back, bowling her over, she was surprised at its silence – a dog would be barking? Or growling? She fumbled for the pepper spray to fire in its face as they struggled.

"GrrrrRHHH!"

Oh yes. _Now_ it was growling, a low, primeval, primitive growl.

Other feet rushed over.

"SIR! Sir! We got one! It's alright, miss, no, I'm not talking to YOU, quick, get the cuffs on him – _her_ - she's a sodding Assassin! Let go now, miss, Ping's getting her cuffed. Don't move, you, this is a loaded crossbow.."

The large heavy dog that had knocked her down retreated out of her field of vision, and she looked up into the even less pleasant vista that was the face of Corporal Nobby Nobbs of the Watch. The bolt of the crossbow that was supposed to be covering her was describing a frightened figure-of-eight in the air, and she wanted to kick it out of his hands, but the other watchman had got her handcuffed.

And behind them, a flash of light as a match flared. For a second it illuminated a very familiar face, and in a second she realized, with despair, exactly _whose_ garden on Scoone Avenue she'd emerged into.

Commander Vimes of the Watch, Duke of Ankh-Morpork, took a satisfied draw on his cigar.

"First one tonight, then. Well done, lads. Let's get her to the holding area. Sergeant Angua?"

The blonde sergeant reappeared, doing up her breastplate straps.

"Sir?"

"First catch, well done. It's a girl, though, so you and Precious dust her down for concealed weapons. I'd better take your name, young lady, for _my_ paperwork"

Emilia felt utterly disconsolate. She'd Failed. What happened next?

"Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, sir" she said, head hanging low.

"You're a friend of Jocasta Wiggs, aren't you? Is she running tonight?"

"Not till much later, sir. Well after three."

She passively stood as the gigantic policewoman, built like a troll, searched her for weapons and equipment.

"I think that's all, sir"

"You only think? Check the hatband. There's usually a flexible knife hidden in there"

_Damn._

Vimes inspected the pile of weapons critically.

"That's all? Assassin's honour?"

"Word of honour, sir, but I'm not an Assassin. Never will be, now. "

Vimes put an uncomfortable, intended to be fatherly, hand on her shoulder.

"Word of advice, miss. It's never over while you're still alive and breathing." He paused. "Ah. I see. That's what's worrying you. Relax. When Vetinari and that bastard Downey asked for my assistance in your final exams, I put a lot of conditions on it. Condition one: I and my Watchmen are here tonight to co-operate with the Assassin's Guild in providing you with a realistic examination. But I made it clear to Downey that we are _not_ his bloody executioners. OK, if one of you showed fight and killed or wounded one of my Watchmen, it would be different and another set of rules would apply. Downey would most probably be collecting a coffin in the morning, which is what the bastard prefers. But you gave up and surrendered to superior force."

Vimes took another drag of his cigar.

"You're the first. There will be more by morning. I am taking your names so that I can stick the list on Downey's desk and warn him I want to see you _all_ alive and ready to resit your exam, or there will be seven kinds of bloody Hell to pay. Vetinari agrees, by the way. His opinion is that too many of you get killed on Finals, and he wants a Fail grade to be nowhere near as final as that. You're in a dangerous job, some of you inevitably _will_ die tonight, but it shouldn't be at the hands of your examiners. I agree."

They had arrived at a wooden shed in the Ramkin family grounds. Vimes courteously held the door open.

"One door. Several strong locks. You're handcuffed. Not impregnable, but the best I can do at short notice. When we get a few more of you, I'll get Willikins to organize you hot drinks, maybe something to eat, blankets if you need them. Just dump her gear on the table there, constable? Thank you.

"Where were we? Oh yes, Vetinari suggested a twist on the usual for tonight, where a proportion of you get vectored through my garden to test your escape and evasion skills. It gives me a chance to test my home security in near-real conditions. I get to sharpen my Watchmens' skills on patrolling and capturing prowlers by night. They get a field exercise in real conditions. _You_ get the sense of fear of knowing you're being followed by people, some of whom know their business. And on the face of it, you've failed, but you're still alive to try again, which is gravy for you people. Downey has been persuaded to allow a retake for borderline fails tonight, by the way. I'll hold him to that, whatever part of the body I have to hold him by! "

Vimes grinned at her. "Goodnight, miss. You might want to have a think about what it _really_ says in your Concordat. Sometimes people have been reading the same bits for so long that they miss the real meaning."

The door closed, and was locked. Emilia was left alone with her thoughts. _What had Vimes been trying to tell her? Something he wasn't able to say explicitly? Something about the real meaning of the Concordat? And why had he left her equipment within easy reach? That was sloppy, for the Watch! Think, Emilia. He called it "Escape and evasion". He said the game isn't over while you're still alive and breathing. _

Ten minutes or so later, heavy footsteps on the gravel path outside the shed. Two men.

"Wonder if she's worked it out yet?" Vimes.

"You dropped her enough hints, sir." Carrot, his deputy.

"Hmm. She could just be sitting there feeling sorry for herself. Shame, really. I took the time to try and read their Concordat, Carrot. It's interesting what it actually _says_."

"Really, sir?"

"Did you know, Carrot, it's actually there, in black and white on the pages of their own bloody manual, that an Assassin should only be prepared to sacrifice his life if the circumstances are completely hopeless? If they're injured beyond the reach of field medicine and their buddies can't carry them out, for instance. Even then, an Assassin should submit to temporary captivity, if there is no alternative, and play along with the captors _until such time as an escape opportunity presents itself. _The Assassin is actually expected to make an escape attempt and then evade pursuit until they're back on friendly ground again."

"And even if injured, their associates should make every conceivable attempt to get them to safety. Even if the injury is the result of their own negligence or over-confidence."

"Exactly, Carrot. So this business of the examiner having the right to inhume a candidate who gets it wrong is plain against even their own rulebook. Which makes it _murder_, Carrot, by anyone's standards. I mean, we put Watch recruits through the most realistic exercises we can devise, like tonight, and the odd accident happens, but we don't bloody well test them to destruction! "

"I thought you hated the assasins, sir?"

"Oh, I do! With a passion. But these aren't yet Assassins. They're just kids. And in my book, need fair treatment and protection like any other kid of seventeen or eighteen . You know, I put all this to Downey at the palace? At least the black-hearted bastard had the grace to look shifty!"

"So, all the young lady in there needs to do..."

"Is to remember she's got a set of lockpicks in her boot-heels. Precious didn't look there and somehow I forgot to prompt her. "Get the cuffs off – she can leave those behind, they're Watch property – pick up her kit, break out of the shed, and make it to safe ground"

"Which would be Miss Sanderson-Reeves, who's waiting with a clip-board at the summerhouse."

"Exactly, Carrot, The moment she's within sight of the Marriage Guidance Counsellor and the hatchet-faced old bat acknowledges her, it's Game Over, and she gets a safe-conduct out of my garden. Shall we go and check the patrols?"

They marched off, Vimes' smoke-break over.

Emilia filled up with mixed emotions. Vimes was secretly on her side? He must be…

She had a Plan. She followed it. About fifteen minutes later, a loose plank at the back of the shed prised itself loose and a dark figure crept out…

Ten minutes after that, she was sprinting for dear life across the Ramkin lawn with a werewolf and three or four Watchmen in pursuit. She saw the summerhouse. She called out:

"Ma'am! I am here!"

"Very well."

The spare figure of Miss Sanderson-Reeves stepped out. She was sipping from a cup of tea. Emilia heard the pursuit behind her slacken and fade.

"Identify yourself!"

"White-three"

"Ah, Miss Mountjoy-Standish. Incidentally, without seeing me, how did you know I was a "ma'am?" "

Emilia thought quickly.

"Ma'm, simple deduction. The Guild prides itself on being socially aware. This is Lady Ramkin's family home. It follows on that the member of staff sent to invigilate here should be somebody who could represent the Guild properly in the presence of the Duke and Duchess. I therefore guessed it either had to be you or Lady T'Malia."

The appeal to her vanity and snobishness had worked: the teacher visibly preened. _Knowing the weaknesses of your teachers is a sort of power_, Emilia thought.

"Lady Ramkin was kind enough to send refreshments out to me. A true member of the nobility" she said, approvingly.

"Now let us begin. This sign?"

"Troll-runes. They roughly translate as " Guhoolog thieving pebble of unmarried parents. Do not even think it or your guhoolug head is kicked in"

"And the word "guhoolog" which you are very carefully not translating?"

"Perhaps best left untranslated, ma'am. I understand it to be a term used for extra emphasis."

Five minutes later, Segeant Angua was escorting her to the gate with a safe-conduct pass.

"Good luck" she said. "I know I shouldn't be wishing you luck, but every profession in this city is going to be better off for a few more women in it."

Emilia had been told to make her way to the Tump, by the quickest possible route.

While the hill itself had been rebuilt on and was now the Tump Tower, headquarters of the Grand Trunk Clacks Company (now owned by the Post Office), the crypts and cellars of the old castle still existed in the mound itself.

She entered one of them.

"Sir. I am here."

"Ok, let's get cracking."

Bill Bradlifudd, one of the new intake of teachers, a bluff, funny, one-of-the-boys man, admired and liked by the pupils, totally at one with the boys (he'd previously taught at Hugglestones) but not quite at ease with girl pupils. He taught PE and Games.

Another sign and three more questions.

Bluff Bill then led her into another chamber. In the dim light, she saw a figure lying on a paliasse on the floor, covered b y a blanket.

_Well, this is easy,_ she thought. _Everyone knows it's a dummy under the blanket. _

"In your own time" Bill requested, clipboard at the ready.

She leveled her pistol crossbow, thinking _Is this it? What an anticlimax! _And aimed for the dummy's head.

Then the figure under the blanket started to writhe and moan.

She felt the hair prickling on the back of her neck. Horror welled. But she steadied herself.

"Forgive me" she breathed, and fired. The figure jolted and twirched and was still and silent.

Emilia, full of the horror and exultation of the moment, accepted the pink slip absently, not realizing its full significance.

Bill took a deep breath.

"No. You should forgive me."

He pulled the blanket back and revealed a realistic human dummy, with a key in its side. He removed the crossbow bolt and passed it back to Emilia, then turned the key a few times. The dummy writhed and the sound of moaning resumed.

"We changed the surprise. We asked Tuttles to design a realistic dummy with a clockwork mechanism. You should think yourself lucky. They experimented with live pigs in my graduation year. Too messy, and the animal rights people protested."

He paused.

"You do know you're a full Assassin now? Well done. You can go back to the Guild. I'm sure your family need to know you've passed."

Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, Licenced Assassin, went and sat on the Tump mound for a while to get her head together. Walking back through the City in her current state of mind would be bringing trouble on her own head. She was horrified, she was elated, she was confused, but most of all, she needed a bath and her bed.


	16. Emmanuelle, Contract Killer

_**The Graduation Class – 17**_

Emmanuelle crawled wearily into her bed, pulled the covers over her head, and stayed there for nearly three days, responding to the shock of the day's events with a sort of healing catatonia. She emerged only to perform brief and necessary bodily functions, plunging back into sleep afterwards.

On the third day, she awoke, suddenly wide awake, sniffed the air, then the soiled week-old bedlinen, then herself, and wrinkled her face in disgust. _Mes Dieux, I'd better clean myself up. Too many Morporkians suspect Quirmians are dirty brutes who believe soap is just a strange-tasting form of cheese. Why am I suddenly proving them right, miserable slut and sloven that I have become? _

She bundled up the dirty linen for the laundress to collect. How she would actually _pay_ the laundress was a different thing, but at least this would only become an issue after she had received a supply of fresh clean laundry.

She felt an itch niggling at her, and remembered. _Eh bien, time for the good Doctor Lawn's miraculous lotion. Better burn this foul underwear, it will be contaminated. _

A small and very satisfying fire later, she was in a long, hot, bath, soaking out stress and shaving her legs, which she thought would be the easy job compared to shaving…._The good Gods gave us bodily hair for a reason! _she rebelled. _I only shave my legs because it makes wearing stockings easier. Why is it with Morporkians that they prefer their women plucked and bald, like a trussed chicken? And how do you shave that most hard to reach place without giving yourself a clitorectomy? Thank goodness this is only to make the medicine more efficacious, and I can allow it to regrow as nature intended! _

Some experimentation, a mirror propped up just so, and several folded towels to elevate the part of the body she was working on, together with the safety razor she used on her legs… lots of foamy soap, and some tentative strokes with the razor.

_Lesbians do this to each other all the time. _she reminded herself. _Apparently it adds to the pleasure._ She shrugged. _These lesbians are crazy. But I can see the point of having a close friend, close enough to be willing to do this for you. At least she'd be able – and willing - to get in close so she might see straight! _

Afterwards, she felt more like a newly-plucked chicken than ever. She examined the ruin of her pubic hair sadly, and considered it made her look like a little girl. She pondered briefly on the darker motivations of some men who _insisted_ their women shaved down there, as if it were theirs to command, and resolved that when all this was over, she would let it grow back and would never, ever, touch it with a blade again. A couple of little nicks, but inevitable when working at arm's reach with only the reflection in a mirror to guide you. Now: this wonderful salve of the Doctor's. To be applied liberally to the infected area with a cotton wool pad. Very well: she upended the bottle and allowed the purple lotion to soak into a pad, and then applied it to her newly shaven area, extending the treatment a little outwards in every direction in case the dirty things tried to run away from it.

At first she felt an almost pleasurable warmth, and then…

_Ai, ai, ai! It burns! This is worse than Chrysoprase and the acid! _She sniffed the air: _l'alcool absolut._ Pure alcohol. Applied to sensitive skin, some of the most sensitive of all on a woman's body, and torture in the cuts!

Emmanuelle found herself rolling on the floor, legs bent up in a foetal position, tears streaming down her face, trying to fan cool air over the burning skin. _I will never, never, have sex with a man again!_ she thought_. I will become a nun. I will live a clean life. Just let this pain stop!_

Through the discomfort, she giggled hysterically, trying to visualize how it must look to an imaginary observer. A grown woman, rolling on the floor in agony with her intimate womanhood on fire… _some God must be watching this and laughing, it's their sort of humour. _

When the fiery irritation receded, Emmanuelle discovered the lotion had stained her skin purple, everywhere it had touched. She took this as a courtesy detail. A dotted "i" or a crossed "t" on the luck she had been enjoying of late.

The card that arrived at the door confirmed her sinking feeling. It was a guest pass for the Cavern Club with a note saying _"dinner at Eihgt, hUman foOd serVed. C."_

Good. After the medication she was in a mood to kill somebody else, on the grounds that it would make her stronger. She wondered who the Troll had in his sights.

Emmanuelle dressed to discreetly impress, trying to ignore the hungry protests echoing up from an empty stomach. _At least I will get a free dinner out of this_, she thought, making her face up. Having made a decision, she was now calm and resolved to follow it through, wherever it led, even though it meant using her skills to actually kill people. Even though trained by her father to handle all sorts of swords in combat, even though she had fought many bouts in the practice arena and other less formal arenas, even though her skills had been praised by masters, even though she had wounded people, sometimes deliberately so that they would remember her name and learn not to pick fights with her, one thing was missing from her CV.

Up until now she had never actually killed anybody.

She hailed a cab. Another drain on her fast-dwindling resources, but walking through this city at night could provoke complications, hopefully of a non-lethal variety. She just wanted to get the evening over with.

A large troll splatter was waiting at the door: she showed him her invitation. The troll nodded, and said "Here, you!" to the driver. Adding "Mr Chrysophrase said for me to fac-ill-it-eight this lady in any way." She watched the driver pale at the implications.

"How much her fare? Mr Chrysoprase said she his trusted associate, and he not want her out of pocket in any way."

_Well, it's not bad so far. _she thought, as she was discreetly escorted inside the Cavern Club. A private dining booth had been set aside for her, and she gratefully ate alone, putting aside misgivings as to the quality of human food prepared by trolls. It really wasn't bad, and the Überwaldean hock she selected off the wine list complemented the meal perfectly. Goodness knows, it made the floor show bearable: a troll dance troupe was murdering the Quirmian _danse aux Apachés, _which should be a combination of menace, greasy sexuality, and slick dance moves set in the criminal underworld. Here, it exuded criminal menace and suppressed violence, but was danced by trolls: the ritual face-slapping part of the dance left, to her eyes, something to be desired.

After eating, a troll came to her table to whisper "Mr Chrysoprase will see you now". She followed him to a private office lower in the building.

The Troll was sitting behind a desk, again having his neck massaged by the seamstress Dolomita.

"Emmanuelle!" he boomed. "Take a seat!"

She sat, and waited for her instructions. The big troll leant forward slightly.

"I have a little job for you." he said, matter-of-factly. "I am distressed at the behaviour of a human associate, a man I thought I could trust, who assure me his handshake is his bond. He agree to look after a sum of money for me and to make sure it, what der word, made clean and sparkling new when I come to use it. For dis service, his bank charge me five t'ousand in each hunnerd t'ousand. I trust him, I deposit two million in his bank so dat it can be made clean, so dat der Watch cannot trace it back to der places and people from whence it came."

Chrysoprase took a swig of his drink, a steaming brimstone-smelling troll cocktail in an insulated mug.

"He assure me his bank can do to money what you humans do to der dirty bedsheets. Wash it, make it clean again, so dere no trace left of what you were doin' in der bed last week"

"Laundering?" said Emmanuelle, intrigued.

"Dat der word! Him my money-laundererer. We agree he take five t'ousand in every hunnerd for his trouble. Dat total of one hunnerd t'ousand in two million. Dat fair, we all have to live. But now he get money in his bank, he change der rules and der gentleman's agreement and demands _ten_ t'ousand in every hunnerd. He knows if I order bank to be raided and get my money dat way, der Watch will suspect me first. He also think Chrysoprase is ordinary ignorant troll, can only count one-two-many – lots. But DIS troll, he can count all der way to two million. And he upset at lack of respect! "

Chrysoprase pounded a fist on the table, making things leap and bounce.

"Which is where you come in. Dese the details on dis man. I want him to have one of dem experiences where Death very near, but him not to be able to come back afterward. It worth fifteen t'ousand dollar of your debt. "

"How soon do you wish there to be an outcome?" Emmanuelle inquired, keeping her voice level.

"I trust you. You look around, maybe ask about der man, but discreetly, make your plans, do der deed. I know you not disappoint!"

Emmanuelle left in a courtesy cab, her head full of plans and ideas.

The target was one of the Greenyham brothers, who were very senior executives in the Commercial Bank of Ankh-Morpork. Emmanuelle noted that Sileas Greenyham had a profitable second business in looking after large sums of money for the criminal underworld, either keeping it safe while its owner was unavoidably detained elsewhere, or laundering it for eventual return to circulation as clean, untraceable, banker's drafts or deeds. For both types of service, he charged between 5-10% of the capital, and other bank executives were keen to condone this strictly illegal banking service because of the sheer amount of money it brought into the vaults.

Greenyham lived in a penthouse above the bank, and it was noted that the security guard consisted, as seemed to be the invariable case, of moonlighting Watchmen and ex-soldiers, some of pensionable age, and a handful of directly retained Bank staff.

_Très bien,_ she thought, _My fear would be of a retained Assassin acting as security consultant. But they seem to want to buy cheap security by relying on casual labour, and even that not of the highest human quality. _

A plan began to take shape. Emmanuelle lit a Sobranie and inhaled gratefully.

The next day, she had lunch with old friends at the Gamblers' Guild. For old times' sake, she deposited five dollars as a spread-bet against the next date and time of the Alchemists' Guild blowing up, then kissed her lunch dates warmly on both cheeks. She walked into lunch with Doc Pseudopolis on one arm, and Scrote Jones on the other, appreciating their friendship and concern for her, part of the international brotherhood (and in this case sisterhood) of gamblers, cardsharps and those who live on their wits.

Conversation was lively, three old friends who had not seen each other for a while. Emmanuelle relaxed and appreciated their company, deflecting worried questions about their having heard she was in trouble.

_These two men I like. Both nearer fifty than forty. One has grown older in an interestingly louche, degenerate way. He is thin and wiry with the eyes of the long-time gambler. The lines in his face are exciting rather than old. They speak of a delicious frisson of danger, a man living on the edge, the sort of lifelong bad boy who women fall for, the dangerous untameable bastard, except he has always been mine and never behaved like a bastard to me. **[1]** He even holds a cigarette with sophisticated confidence. But mes Dieux, he has a name like Scrote Jones? The other also has lines in his face, but has lost much hair. Where one looks sophisticatedly degenerate, he looks just seedy and middle-aged. His tragedy is that I could never want to sleep with him as much as I want to with the other. Yet he too is a loyal and dear friend. And he has the romantic name, Doc Pseudopolis! _

Emmie, you should have _told_ us." Scrote Jones said, reproachfully. "you're a Guild member, what else is a Guild _for_?"

"I didn't want to worry you" she said, shrugging.

"Between us we could have paid off Chrysophrase" Doc said, concern in his voice.

"But yes, with the money you have set aside for a decent retirement, when the reflexes and the judgement are not what they were! I could not have accepted that. I got myself into trouble, it was up to me to get myself out of it. _Fait accompli_. "

She shrugged.

"I could see you working as a Seamstress" Scrote said, reflectively. He was a realist: he knew that if all he could ever attain was a part-share in the affections of this extraordinary woman, he'd be grateful for that, and not force for an exclusivity she could never give to any one man.

"You'd be good at it. Give you five years, and Rosie herself would be looking over her shoulder at the competition. I can see you in her job eventually! But working for Chrysoprase? Be careful, girl! You don't know what you're getting into!"

Doc and Scrote got her into a game of poker that lasted for the rest of the afternoon. Emmanuelle, strongly suspecting that they were holding back and favouring her, left the table nearly three hundred dollars better off, thankful for having the problem of immeiate spending money eased.

She said goodye to Scrote Jones, who looked at her sadly and said "That cussed streak of independence in you is going to be the death of you, girl!"

"I know." she said, softly.

"But there's no changing you, girl." He paused. "I wouldn't have it any other way!" They kissed.

"Stay alive, Emmmanuelle!" the gambler's gambler advised her. He watched her go with what she thought was a wistful sadness in his eyes.

* * *

Silyeas Greenyham shouted a boisterous goodbye to his drinking and dining cronies as he let himself back into the bank at ten. His family had been executives and major shareholders at the Commercial Bank for generations. An exclusive education and an arrogant self-belief in his right to be a man who dictated policy and made money as of right, rather than any real intelligence, had got him to the top. That same self-assured arrogance had convinced him he could cheat Chrysoprase and go back on a deal, with impunity.

Guards saluted him as he progressed up the stairs to the penthouse, his natural home. To Greenyham, who divided the world into three parts **(2)**, this was only right and natural.

It was only natural that Rosie Palm had sent him a girl, too. She was waiting in the bedroom, demure, almost naked but for a black see-through _peignoir_, passively waiting for him, just as he liked them. He leered, and began to undress, removing his trousers. He roughly and coarsely suggested she come over here and kneel in front of him. He grabbed her breasts and squeezed, without finesse or regard for causing discomfort. Then he stiffened and his eyes widened with horror and realisation.

Enmmanuelle knew enough to leave the knife in between his ribs until he was dead, so as to minimise the blood flow. She half-dragged the body to the bed, covered it, retrieved her knife and said _Dormez bien, crapaud!, _both incensed and relieved that he'd grabbed at her _embonpoint _like that. The outrage had been enough to give her right hand the final impetus it needed to drive the short stabbing dagger into his chest.

Stepping to the door of the suite, she hooked the cardboard sign over the handle that said_ Strictly Do Not Disturb!_ and locked the door behind her. She then methodically cleaned her knife, and then used the sumptuous bathroom to clean any splashes of blood off her body. Remembering, she left near the body that one small thing Chrysoprase had asked she left there - a Caroc card, the Ten of Swords, depicting a corpse face-down, floating in a river with ten daggers in its back. She bagged up the peignoir for disposal elsewhere, such a shame, and leisuredly dressed in street clothes. This included a cloak with a hood, but she took good care to offer the guards the opportunity to notice a low-cut revealing front. That way, when asked tomorrow, they'd remember her breasts far more clearly than her face. She added to the illusion by placing a large false brown mole high on her left breast - in her experience, men noticed intimate freckles - and, satisfied, she left the apartment not quite an hour after Greenyham had returned. That felt like long enough for an oaf of his stamp.

The guards escorted her to the street: affecting a coarse Morporkian accent, Emmanuelle joked with them, as a seamstress might, and dissappeared into the dark. She took good care to be seen leaving in a direction completely opposite to that in which she lived. Several blocks away, she hailed a cab. Inside, she relaxed. It was done. Her first killing for the troll. And so easy, so dispassionate.

* * *

Over the following months, she commited six more killings for Chrysoprase. She know she was a "favoured business associate" when he started sending her gifts of cash - "bonus payments" - over and above the repayment of her debts. This enabled her to live a lifestyle she liked, and she wondered if she could make a career of killing for money. Around this time, she noted there were more gargoyles than she remembered living around her apartment. She also had a suspicion, she hoped a paranoid one, that Assassins she met in the streets were looking at her as if memorising her face for attention later.

Chrysoprase called her to a conference one night. He was on his own in the office - no Dolomita - and welcomed her warmly.

"Dat job you did in der restaurant! Dat was classy, wit' der crossbow concealed in der violin! I tell you, a lot of der criminal fraternity in dis town, they is going to _worry _if der musician comes up to them wit' der violin case and opens it up! **(3) **And der best of it is, dey all knows it come from me, so Chrysoprase get der reputation for bein' creative and stylish as well as mean. You did well, my friend!"

"It was necessary" Emmanuelle said. "The Watch are beginning to look for a serial killer who uses only bladed weapons and uses them well. Changing my approach will confuse them"

"Der Black Widow, they is calling you." mused the troll. He sighed. "I have to tell you dat dis is der last job you need to do for me. After dis, you is paid off your debt. You can do what you choose then, go away, or carry on working for me if you want to. I will be sorry to lose you!"

Emmanuelle read only truth in the troll's words. She smiled, with some warmth.

"It may be the best, I think, if I left. The Watch is suspicious. They use gargoyles as Watchmen, do they not? And I hear from friends that the Assassins' Guild is rounding up unlicenced killers who are giving them competition. I do you this last assignment, then perhaps I leave for Genua or Brindisi."

"Der Guild is being persistent. And I hear people who kill for money are dissappearing from der streets. You know they took der Marriage Guidance Counsellor?"

"There was such a person?"

"Until der Assassins found her, dere was. So it may be wise if you left. But dis one last job. I want you to kill a troll."

"A TROLL?" she almost shrieked.

"A troll" her boss confirmed. "Listen, it easier than you think. I show you. And I show you dis because I trust you"

To her surprise, the massive troll knelt in front of her and submissively bent his head forwards.

"Feel down der back of de neck. What you find?"

"Rock. Bone" Her fingers probed. Then stopped. It felt like a massive wart, about the size of her palm, under the skin. Slighltly softer to the touch than the surrounding tissue.

"Careful. I taking der risk you might kill me. If dat your wish, I can't stop you. But I don't believe you will."

"Dat you are touching is exposed nerve tissue. Clever doctors call it a ganglion. A very hard blow just dere will kill a troll stone-dead. It der weak point for us. Troll-woman who know how to stroke it in der right way, it also _erroneous _zone for us. Dolomita, she good!"

"Erogenous, perhaps" Emmannuelle murmured., stroking gently: it was like a huge mis-shaped star, with a central body and radiating arms.

"If two male trolls have fight, it strictly forbidden to hit der killing spot." Chrysophrase continued, as her fingers explored it. "It only ever allowed in fights to der death."

"Could a human kill a troll by punching here?" she asked. "Or do we need to use a hammer or a club?"

"Human strength, on its own, maybe just knock troll out." Chrysophrase said. "Maybe wit' hammer you kill. A sword can do it, split or sever der nerve connections."

The troll rumbled and got to his feet. "I won't ask you to do what Dolamita does. No offence, you is not my type!"

"None taken" Emmanuelle assured him, taking the folder on her latest client._ Mes Dieux! Was he sounding me out for inter-species sex just then? It becomes crazier!_

* * *

A few nights later, a figure in black waited, lying on a lintel above a doorway, merged with her surroundings and totally motionless. She waited, cradling the sledgehammer. _I will only get one shot at this!_ she thought, and prayed for accuracy.

They rumbled in below her, a group of trolls. She moved, silently and without hurry, to her feet. She readied the long-armed sledgehammer, peering to recognise the target. He, a former hench-troll who has chosen to go renegade and ignore the will of Chrysoprase, is below. Like his former master, he apes human suits and jewellry.

Emmanuelle allowed her knees to flex and her arms to take the strain, as if playing croquet. She flexed the weight of the hammer upwards. Then judging the moment correct, allowed it to pendulum down and forward, contacting the back of the troll's neck with an audible crack of shattering rock.

She heard the avalanche noise of the fallen client, but the inexorable truth of Newton's Third Law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - propelled her forward and over the edge of the building. She rolled in the air, bounced off another troll's head, and, just about landing on her feet, was running for dear life into the dark.

Behind her, troll voices started shouting "Assassin! All in black! Him went dat way!" and she knew the hunt was up. She also knew that trolls can work up a very fast lumber when they have to. So she ran, hoping she had outsidstanced her pursuers... _Oh, no! _

A large troll shape loomed up in the alley. There was something familar about it. The pattern of scars on its chest...

Troll and Woman stood, facing and scrutinising each other, as if trying to remember a recent meeting.

"Miss?" it said. "You remember me? Substrate?"

The troll Chrysoprase had been torturing that day.

Emmanuelle stopped, uncertainly. "I remember" she said.

"So do I" said Substrate. "Dem trolls, dey kill you if dey catch you. Happy for you you has met a troll who owe you a favour. You beg Chysophrase to save my life. He tell me to remember you, and dat I owe you. So now I save yours. You is Assassin. Dat means you can climb. You want get up on rooftop where no troll follow."

Emmanuelle looked up. The wall seemed impossibly sheer for its first twelve feet or so. Then the troll picked her up .

"Can you grab that windowsill up dere?" and half-lifted, half threw her. Emmmanuelle scrambled for handholds and found herself still and silent while below, a troll voice called "human not come down here, we wastin' time!", followed by receding footfalls.

She muttered her thanks for the right troll at the right time, and swiftly worked the window catch to gain entry, leaping onto the room.

A man and a woman sat up in bed, staring at the black-clad presumed Assassin who has just entered. She thought swiftly.

"_Reste tranquille, mon ami. _Stay silent, and it is possible her husband shall not get to hear of this!"

"But I am her husband!"

"Ah. then apologies. I must have entered the wrong farce." She ran out of the bedroom, favouring the indoor route to the roof. At least it was better lit and it had stairs. She ran upstairs, recognising that she was in a hotel, deciding to spread panic and confusion as she went to make life more difficult for any pursuing trolls who might even now be hammering down the front door. kicking on doors, shouting "FIRE!" and above all moving upwards, she found, eventually, a service stair to the roof. here, in the blesed dark, she crouched and listened.

The high yodelling call of a gargoyle nearby, answered by one further away. Running feet and Watch whistles in the street.

_Non d'un nom._ _You escape one peril, another takes its place._ She ran several roofs away from the Watchmen, but the gargoyle calls followed her. She paused and listened.

"She's got to be here somewhere, Sergeant. That was Downspout."

_Vimes. _

"She did get Pitchblende, sir. Him one mean troll and der street a litle cleaner for him dead."

_Detritus. _

"I still want to get her, sergeant. Ideally before the Assassins' Guild do. Are the other foot patrols in place? With a bit of luck we can isolate her to one or two rooftops. "

She felt a cold chill. Where was she? Short Street and Heroes' Street. Where were there no gargoyles, where she could lose their trail? Perhaps the river, perhaps the Patrician's Palace grounds. She tuned towards Small Gods and Attic Bee Street. Where the _other_ pursuers made their presence felt.

Two or three black-clad figures rose up in front of her. Blackened steel glistened in the starlight.

"_Eh bien, mes amis_!" she muttered, drawing her own sword. "_A l'outrance_!" Ahe leapt forward, scattering them, and swords clashed. But outside popular fiction, one can only hold off three, then four, then five, for so long.

Good though she was, she was outnumbered, being forced ever backwards, towards the river and Filigree Street.

A few despairing, almost suicidal, roof-jumps left the Assassins stranded, and she waved her sword at them in triumph. Then more Assasins appeared. It occured to Emmanuelle that they were steering her, herding her, in the direction they wanted her to take. But the roaring of blood in her ears and the exulatation of sword-fighting by night was preventing her from seeing clearly. Or she would have realised exactly why she was being steered back toawards Filigree Street, and one rooftop in particular, where a dozen or so black figures appeared to take up the pursuit, fresh, untired, black-clad figures.

Forced to the very edge of the roof, she glanced down. Balcony. A still figure on guard. Who must be alseep, idiot, not to have noticed the clamour up here._ Once on that balcony I can escape on the ground. Then I only have the Watch to deal with. Nom de tous nommes, this is not my night! _

Sheathing her sword, she waved a mocking farewell at her attackers, blew them a kiss, then leapt for the balcony, some ten feet below her. She landed on a dressmakers' dummy wearing the black cloak, breaking it in two. Leaping to her feet, she saw the doors were open to the room beyond. It was dark. She tentatively went in, feeling her way in the dark. The doors closed behind her and an oil lamp flared into life. She went for her sword.

"You are Emmannuelle-Marie Lapoignard Les Deux-Epées? Please be seated."

More oil lamps were lit. She could see the walls were lined with Assassins. With crossbows. With a sigh of resignation, she resheathed her sword and sat.

"I am Doctor Downey, master of the Guild. This is my associate Lady T'Malia. We have a certain proposition to make to you."...

Emmanuelle eventually signed. She wondered if this was more or less civilised and sophisticated than the threat of acid.

And now the four were complete.

* * *

[1] On Roundworld, she might be describing French cinema's eternal bad boy, Serge Gainsborough.

(2) Himself, at the top. His business associates, in the next level down. Then everybody else.

(3) In a sub-theme about organised crime in Ankh-Morpork, I _**HAD**_ to find room for the Roundworld cliché about the murder weapon in the violin case... it obviously couldn't be a gonne, so why not make it a violin?

* * *


	17. EmmanuelMartin de Jeannedarc

_**The Graduation Class – extra bonus chapter. **_

**Based on and expanded from my short "_The Only One_" and put into context in this story. At the moment I'm putting this at the end of the story so everyone can see it to be able to read it. In context in the story, it will fit shortly after the last "flashback"scene in which Emmanuelle's capture by the Guild is explained and the offer she cannot refuse is put to her. I am systematically rewriting the rest so as to incorporate this new information and to allow for it - currently up to chapter 13 or 14 out of 28. Also tidying up and eliminating inconsistencies, anachronisms and irritating little grammar and spelling issues.**

_It's like this._

_The moment of dread for any fanfic writer engaged in fleshing out the author's one-shot, underdeveloped or placeholder characters, is when new canonical information emerges about that character that all of a sudden renders their speculative fiction about that character fallacious or just plain wrong. _

_I've just hit that wall, and it's painful. _

_I went "ouch" and had an infra-black moment. Especially when I realised the information about that character had been out there in the public domain all along – I just never had access to it. The thing is, Terry Pratchett does an annual diary in the Discworld style that carries extra information about the Discworld that you don't get in the novels. Because it's by Pratchett and it's about the Discworld you have to accept it as Word of God – canonical. And the thing abut the annual Yearbook is that by its very nature, it's ephemeral. They don't get reprinted, the people who bought them seem to hang on to them, and you never see them up for sale on EBay or in second-hand bookshops. And not _**everything**_ in them makes it into the Discworld Companions, I have now realised. _

_So I missed the additional information about one of my favourite characters, Madame Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Épées, which has been hiding in plain sight – until I got to locate additional extracts and quotes from the Yearbook in lost corners of the Internet. _

_This has __now been set firmly in the context of the original story "The Graduation Class". _

* * *

As the training year began, the other three women began to have mixed feelings about Emmanuelle. There was nothing any of them could put her finger on exactly; the Quirmian woman was generous with her time and skills, likeable and pleasant enough, and tolerable in the confined space of their shared quarters, where all four were aware a large amount of give-and-take must apply, if life was to be bearable at all.

But where Alice, Joan and Johanna were moving tentatively and hesitantly in a strange place and were still, after nearly two months, learning all the ins and outs of Filigree Street's rambling corridors and stairways, Emmanuelle moved with ease and certainty. It was as if she already knew her way around. More than that, she seemed conscious of needing to conceal the fact she already knew the place – Alice had heard her say to one of the other trainees "Guild Stationery Office? Up the main stairs, but where you would turn right to the Master's Office, you turn to the left and follow the corridor around, past the Contracts Registry…." Then she had been aware of several sets of eyes looking at her with a common _How on Disc do you know __**that**_? expression. "Or so I believe from studying the floor-plans." she had added, hurriedly back-tracking.

And, sharing a bedroom with Johanna, the Howondalandian girl had mentioned they were due for a basic lesson in Inimical Alchemy with this Mr Mericet tomorrow. "Whet sort of teacher do you think he is?"

Emmanuelle had smiled and at the end of a tiring physical day, had said, unguardedly, not appreciating her room-mate had asked a rhetorical question with no expectation of a reply,

"Mr Mericet is most certainly dry, he has ze appearance of a zombie, he is younger than he seems, although not by very much, he is of a most _**sardonique **_disposition. That is, he is very sarcastic, _ma chèrie_. For should you put one finger or toe out of place, his chosen weapon for inhumation is dark and destructive sarcastic comment. He is, however, a most good teacher of his subject, possibly the best. Did you ever have a teacher like him?"

"How did she _know_?" Johanna had said, with perplexity, after the lesson and her first encounter with deadly sarcasm in the form of Mericet. And the way the Quirmian had said _Did you ever have a teacher like him? _had sounded _strange_, somehow. Elmost es if he hed taught her before, but _thet_ cennot be right, cen it?

Alice and Joan had nodded at each other.

"We need to have a quiet little word with Madam." Joan had said, decisively. "Alice, m'dear, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"She went for that private drink with Lady T'Malia the other evening." Alice said, with a grim look. "Joan, they tell us _we_ are going to be the first women to ever qualify as Assassins. But if that's the case, how did T'Malia ever make it? _When_ did she make it? And _how_?"

"And if there's already _one_ woman Assassin, there must be more out there." agreed Joan. "And did you see the way Mericet looked at her, as if he recognised her from somewhere? As if he knew her before? Is it just me, m'dears, or am I beginning to suspect our Quirmian madame isn't all she seems?"

"And Mericet nearly called her by a different name." Alice agreed. "That was strange. He called her "Mr de …" and then checked himself quickly. Did anyone else catch that?"

"Well, up until now, everyone in his classes has been a "mister". Joan mused. "So we can't read too much into that. He's just not used to women, that's all! But let's say they've insinuated a couple of fully-qualified graduate Assassins into our class. Just to watch us at all hours of the day."

"To check on our loyelty? To listen to whet we sey when we think we are in private? _Spies_?" said Johanna. Brought up in Rimwards Howondaland, she had learnt early about the paranoid and secretive Bureau of State Security, part secret police, part spy machine, part-Assassins, said to have ears everywhere. Her family had been investigated by BOSS for several reasons, and a favourite uncle had had to leave the country in a hurry, going into voluntary exile.**(1)**.

"_A_ spy, certainly." said Alice. "Where is she now?"

"Down in the erena, doing some extra sword-drill." said Johanna.

"Hmm." Joan said, thoughtfully. "She _is_ rather good with swords. Johanna, keep that dangerous-looking whip of yours to hand? Alice, m'dear, have a pistol crossbow where you can reach it? If necessary, I'll dope her drink. Mr Mericet hinted there are such things as _truth drugs_, but all it needs is to get her part sedated and then use kindness when you talk to her. We really _do_ need to have this out in the open where we _all_ can see it!"

The three women armed themselves and quietly waited for the return of the fourth.

* * *

Emmanuelle wiped the sweat from her face and draped the towel around her shoulders.

_Eh bien, this will do for today. Back to the rooms, I think, and a bath before dinner. I must be so careful. Lady T'Malia advised me not to let on to the others that I was a pupil here before. She believes my presence will stiffen resolve as I am only revisiting things I did with success before__, and those skills I have I can informally teach. But Alice is so very clever. And it does not do to under-estimate Joan, who is a woman of cunning and resource. They have both, I am sure, noticed things about me that do not fit. And la petite, Johanna, her attention is consumed by having to understand a strange and very foreign place to her, very quickly. She too is by no means stupid. _

Mr Wilkinson, the old and soon-to-retire Master-at-Arms, smiled and patted her shoulder. He said, in a quiet voice

"You were a pleasure to teach ten years ago. I see you have improved in the years since, young master de Jeanndarc!"

She looked about her. Nobody near enough to have heard. _Bon_.

"I can report to the Dark Council that in the coming years where young ladies will attend this school, we have a most worthy candidate to succeed me after my retirement. I am glad. Many of us felt you were ill-treated by the Guild when your secret was revealed."

Emmanuelle smiled at her old teacher, one of few men she respected and looked up to.

"It is a prize to strive for, most certainly." she said. To her surprise, she no longer felt ill-will or bitterness towards the Guild for what had happened. Lady T'Malia, after all, had advised her to look on the Mature Students' Course as a year of refresher training in what she had already been taught. And this time around she would become a licenced and legitimate Assassin.

Emmanuelle was pleased, too, that young women would soon be able to do openly what she had been forced to do in secrecy and subterfuge. And her experience would guide them. It was much for this reason that she had reconciled herself to a life of teaching at the Guild school. She could still be a Gambler in her free time, after all, as there was no bar to cross-Guild membership. And she had been sternly warned by T'Malia not to even _think_ of professional misconduct with the older boys "although I know well enough myself that there will be beautiful boys of eighteen who will be a temptation. It just isn't _done,_ my dear. Not if you wish to remain a teacher."**(2)** Apart from that, the Guild had assured her that it did not police or make moral judgments on the personal lives of its members. So discreet lovers would still be a feature of her life.

_But do I tell the others I have been to this School before and the unique circumstances of my attending? T'Malia warned me that this may bring suspicion on my head. But if they already fear I am a spy in their midst…_

Paying sincere respect to Mr Wilkinson, who in his sixties could still fight a shrewd practice duel drawing on years of experience of not having come second in a swordfight,**(3) **she made her way back to their quarters, on a high floor she knew was reserved for Very Senior Assassins. The women, by default, had been allocated far more spacious and better-furnished accommodation than most of the male trainees had been allocated. They were, after all, the first four _official_ female Assassin trainees. And two of the four were still under house-arrest: only Alice could leave the premises with complete freedom on her unsupported parole. Johanna could come and go with an escort; but Emmanuelle and Joan had also been hunted by the Watch, and the Guild was bound to keep them under open arrest. Even when the Guild could see fit to relax this, both of them had been warned that the Watch might attempt to re-arrest them for the slightest little thing, like littering or walking without care and attention.

Emmanuelle noted as she passed through the courtyard that whole wings of the Guild were under _"Do Not Enter: Building Work In Progress"_ signs as internal floors were re-arranged to split larger dorms down into two, or to repartition larger rooms into smaller, so as to fit the intake of new pupils that were being planned for. The summer, with most pupils packed up and gone elsewhere, was the only time for this, and it was anticipated the rebuilding work would progress, during school holidays, over the next year, to be only just finished before the first girls arrived.

Indeed, the Guild had bought out the old College of Heralds site on Mollymog Street for an overspill campus; its heraldic animals were, for the moment, housed at the Palace Menagerie alongside the displaced Heralds, and the understanding was that the Guild would eventually provide purpose-built facilities for the Heralds. It also had an option on vacant buildings on Short Street. She knew the Mollymog site was being developed to incorporate classrooms, lecture theatres, and additional student accommodation, intended for the use of senior pupils who had survived the spartan dorm years. Despite her native cynicism, she conceded that this was an exciting time to be a teacher, in a school where money was being lavishly invested to fund an expansion and whole new subject areas were being brought onto the curriculum.

She walked on to the stairway leading to their rooms, knowing her swordfighting dress – loose baggy harem pants and a tight sleeveless top – were drawing attention, not least from building workers. A smile in reply to the usual catcalls, accompanied by a clearly seen warning hand on her sword-hilt, dealt with that minor irritation.

And then she was back. to see three occupied chairs had been set in a loose semi-circle facing a fourth vacant one. A tray of coffee and four cups had been left out. She was welcomed with smiles and nods. Purposeful ones.

"Ah, Emmanuelle, m'dear!" Joan said, cheerfully. "I think it's time for a little _chat,_ don't you?"

_Ah. Here it comes. _

"Pour yourself a coffee, would you? There's cream. And just make yourself comfortable. A few little things we need to discuss between the four of us.."

Emmanuelle took off her sword-belt and propped it against the wall, visibly out of reach. Then she sat on the free chair.

"I have made myself defenceless." she said, with a sincerity that fooled none of the others. "I sincerely have no desire to fight any of you. Johanna, _ma_ _petite_, you are nearest to the coffee? Ah, merci."**(4)**

There was an expectant silence as Johanna handed around coffees.

Then Emmanuelle said

"I must apologise. I was at fault for not telling you sooner and I regret you suspect me of darker intentions. Please listen to me."

And Emmnuelle spoke of her early life in Quirm, of her father, the master sword-smith and of learning from him how to nurse raw metal along all the stages of becoming an arrowhead, a crossbow quarrel, a halberd blade, an axe-head, and finally, when her father judged her ready, her first formal sword. She spoke of her mother, who tooled leather and ornamented it with inlay and filigree, who as often as not made matching scabbards and belts.

"My father, who smelt of the forge, and my mother, who, alas, carried the smell of the tanners. We were not poor, by any means, but we were of the lowest."

And of her patron, the Compte de Lapoignard, who had taken her into his sword-fighting academy and taught her the basis of what she knew.

And so Emmanuelle-Marie found her first sword teacher, a man who respected her as a uncle should a favoured niece. He recognised there was more here than just a bright and gifted girl with a talent for swords. By agreement with her father - the Ecole Quirmienne having taught her all it could - he also supervised the prodigy's further education. He was liberal, this Count, and realised that the girl would likely ascend to the greatest heights had she been born a noble and not just as the _fille d'un artisane_. She was not just pretty, she was beautiful. She was possessed of a fierce intelligence and a graceful wit. She was born to swords, that much was clear. Feed her intelligence and tutor her in languages and the graceful arts, and she would go far, this Emmanuelle-Marie.

At first, she quibbled at the language teaching, finding Morporkian ugly to her voice and Überwaldean to be utterly harsh and graceless. But the Compte, who she respected, won her over, pointing out that Morporkian was the language of the world outside Quirm, and not to speak it was to be voiceless. As for Überwaldean, he shared her sentiments, but he pointed out that the destinies of Quirm and Überwald were somehow bound together. Occasionally, and certainly within living memory, it had become absolutely necessary to arrive at _accommodations_ with Überwald and for Quirmian pride, regrettably, to be set aside. Emmanuelle had heard rumours that le Compte had, er, _collaborated_, in the aftermath of the last need to arrive at an accommodation, when Überwaldian armies had briefly been in occupation of Quirm. But she shrugged: the noble had been selflessly kind to her. She was in his debt. _Et bien_, she would learn Überwaldian and Morporkian. Besides, having out-paced at least one tutor, Le Compte had mysteriously said he had a _bon idée_ for her future teaching. One that dictated that her Morporkian had to be _very_ good indeed.

But, _hélas_, it also required a degree of deceit and subterfuge. He, the Compte, feared that the Quirm Academy, run as it was by a pair of _singular_ spinsters, would now merely bore and confine her. And the academic opportunities for our gifted girl-children are so very pitifully limited. How good an actor could she be?

"But surely, _mon patron_, you mean an _actress_?" Emmanuelle-Marie had queried him.

The old Compte had smiled.

"_Non, ma petite_. I most assuredly mean an actor. _Ecoutes-moi, s'il tu plâit. _Deception is distasteful, but it sometimes becomes necessary so as to advance oneself in life when all doors are closed, and I fear you are fast coming to the limit of what I may teach you.. The best schools on this Disc are closed to girls. In the future it may not be so, as I hear the wise Lord Vetinari is giving thought to expanding education in his City. But that may be fifteen or twenty years hence and no use to one such as you _now._ I am giving thought to announcing that I am taking in a noble ward, son of a distant cousin whose parents, _hélas_, died in sudden tragic circumstances. I am undertaking to pay the costs of his upbringing and education and I will welcome him as a son, although a second son after my heir Maurice. This ward, I am sending to Ankh-Morpork to one of the best schools there is."

He looked appraisingly at Emmanuelle.

"Your figure is boyish and with a little deceit and art, you will not be too obviously feminine about the chest. Your hair must be shorn, and you must be taught to shave, or at least how to go through the motions of shaving. Other deficiencies… well, my valet suggested a rolled-up pair of socks will suggest a shape in the correct place. You have trained with men and boys in my academy, you are _good _at imitating their swagger and their walk, and your father René assures me, with frowns, that in the forge you swear and curse with the best of his prentices.

"I have discussed this with your parents, and they agree. You are going to the Assassins' School in Ankh-Morpork. Although not as a girl."

Emmanuelle took a deep astonished breath. Then she laughed.

"_Pourquoi pas?"_ she said. "It will be most droll!"

* * *

Emmanuel-Martin, chevalier de Jeannedarc, passed the late-entry entrance exam to the Assassins' School with flying colours. His examiners said the young man had presented as a brilliant prospect and they were glad to be able to accept a clever, graceful, young gentleman of good family and background. Especially one so gifted in swordcraft of all kinds.

A place was not a problem: a late entrant at the age of fourteen will find there are plenty of vacant desks in Assassins' School classrooms. People starting at eleven drop out for various reasons. Maybe they decide the Assassins' School isn't for them and transfer elsewhere, maybe the School, with exceeding reluctance, expels, excludes or sends down unsuitable, unsatisfactory or otherwise intractable pupils; in some cases natural attrition has created a vacancy. One whose education has been on a par with the Guild School, one who is naturally good at swords and bladed weapons, one who in Metalwork lessons can even teach his tutor a thing or two about forging a blade, one who generously passes his skills on to less fortunate comrades, will always fit in, and little eccentricities can be made light of.

Showering with your kit on after Games, for instance, and changing under a towel; well, some boys, especially ones yet to be visited by puberty, are naturally shy. Emmanuel was relieved he was one of five in Scorpion House who were shy in the changing rooms. Emmanuel found himself in more danger when he realised he was looking too intently at the naked boys in the changing rooms, some of whom were well-built and well-proportioned for fourteen. Well, he'd never been in a room full of naked men before, and, _zut alors_, he was not one to pass up on the educational opportunity.

He found himself being whispered about, and wondered uncertainly if his secret was out. Conversations would begin in whispers and stop with uncertain glances as he walked past.

Disconsolately, he wondered if his disguise wasn't good enough. _Ma foi, this is farce! How long will it be before I am discovered?_

He. could have cheered when he realised the truth – a big brash dorm-mate referred to him, off-handedly, as _that Quirmian poof. He's got to be, the way he was looking at my todger in the changing room!_

Emmanuel laughed it off with sheer relief, but boys who were well-disposed towards him, the ones who said in whispers _It really doesn't matter_, and_ Don't think you're alone, in a place like this a lot of that sort of thing goes on, you'd be surprised, _also said, warningly _Don't be too obvious. If they find out, it's an expulsion offence. They have a crack-down every so often and boys caught at IT get expelled! _

He soon learnt to avoid predatory older boys of That Type. One day a sixth-former who was notorious in dorm rumour tried to get fresh, putting a hand on Emmanuel's bottom. A whole common room looked on, seeing how the Quirmian boy would react. Emmanuel realised it was a test.

_If he carries on making a pass at me, he will discover more than he expects. Or, perhaps, less. On the other hand if I do nothing, I am the weakling, the runt, prey for bullies. This must not be so. _

Emmanuel shrieked a surprisingly girlish shriek, whirled, and very accurately kicked her offender in the fork, following it through with clubbed hands smashing down on the back of his neck, laying him out like a felled ox. He then turned, and addressed the room.

"I may be ze Quirmian poof." he announced, "But my body is still my own Learn from this fool's example. We Quirmians are _fighters_!"

To his surprise, the Scorpion House Common Room erupted and he received a standing ovation.

"HWHAT is happening HERE!" demanded Lady T'Malia, rushing in, drawn by the noise and cheering. She gave Emmanuel a suspicious look.

"Benson fell over and hurt himself, miss." said Noel Fforbes, Head of House. "We warned him about that rogue patch on the carpet before."

T'Malia looked around her. She picked a pupil at random.

"Is that true? You!"

"Yes, ma'am. It is."

Emmanuel realised that even people previously hostile were lying to a teacher for him. It was a good feeling. He'd been accepted.

"Very well, then. You and you, get him to his quarters. And tell him when he wakes up that I will punish any more "falling over the carpet", _whatever_ form it took!"

She gave Emmanuel another long hard stare. He was reminded that Lady T'Malia taught diplomacy, _realpolitik_ and political expediency. Therefore she was trained to spot a lie, a deception or an evasion from miles away. It was her trade, after all. But it appeared that T'Malia was going to let this lie pass, for deeper _**realpolitikal **_reasons of her own. She made the obligatory warning about _"any more unseemly noise, and the whole house will be punished!"_ then turned and swept out.

Emmanuel had realised something fundamental about deception.

_Because they believe they have detected I am a homosexual male, they will not now look further for the real truth. And as long as they see a funny Quirmian who is most of the time a friendly, courteous and helpful fellow, but a wildcat in a fight, they will be well-disposed. It will pay also to be more Quirmian than I am, the funny stage-Quirmian of the jokes and music hall. _

And so her schooldays progressed. She returned to Quirm in the hols to see her family and the Compte and to report on her progress, glad to be Emmanuelle again.

Incredibly, the deception lasted over three years. By this time, she had ascended to the Sixth Form, where privilege meant she shared a room with three other boys. She was worried about this. But when selecting room-mates - another privilege - three boys who had been huddled together in quiet conference called Emmanuel over and asked if he would consent to be the fourth to share with them, she agreed. For she knew all three were temperamentally suited to share together, being of the more _fey_ sort who appreciated the company of men more than they would girls. and having a naturally broad accepting mind, she did not quail that two of them chose to share a bed at night, leaving only she and Julian in the other half of the room behind a modesty-curtain. In fact sharing with three young men who were seriously experimenting with their sexuality was to make things easier, as _everybody_ had a secret to conceal.

But when Julian got into Emmanuel's bed one night, she felt she had to gently disabuse him. The physical closeness was nice and warm and pleasant, and she was aware of what he wanted. It just couldn't be with _her,_ that was the problem. Not without a certain intimacy that would be painful and somewhat messy.

"Peace, _mon ami_! " she said, as an exploring hand moved lower down and failed to find what it sought, stopping dead in questing surprise, mirrored in its owner's eyes. "Then she took a deep breath. "There is something about me that you should know..."

After his initial shock and surprise, Julian, and to a lesser extent the other two Odd Boys, Graham and Kenny, became her greatest friends and allies, keeping her secret and even helping her to refine the deception. It wasn't hard: everyone else dismissed the four as merely gay, and chose to look no further, taking the blue cat painted on their study-bedroom door as a huge coded joke at the expense of the masters. Julian even stayed with Le Compte in Quirm during holidays, relishing the chance to see Emmanuelle dressed appropriately as a girl and, in the privacy of her rooms, to experiment with wearing her clothes and make-up. Le Compte, a worldly-wise man of sophistication, was understanding, even nurturing.

But it had to come to an end. Within a few months of her Final Run, she took ill and had to be isolated in the School Sanitarium with a crippling influenza. The School Doctor was universally thought of as useless, but when he the female bedder who worked overtime shifts as a nursing orderly came to him and said

" I was bed-bathing the Quirmian boy in number four. He was putting up a hell of a fight to me undressing him… and you can see why…I think you'd better see _this_, doctor!"

Then even he could tell the difference between a naked boy and a naked girl. He wasn't _that _completely inept.

"Oh, shit." he muttered. "One of those".

And went to find Doctor Follett.

* * *

"I'm sorry." Dr Follett said, curtly. "This is an embarrassing situation, I hope you realise? The worst of it was, you fooled everybody. Everybody. You might even have _graduated_!"

Emmanuelle tried not to hang her head in shame, and instead tried to hold the Master's angry gaze.

"I don't see why we _can't_ let her graduate." Lady T'Malia said, defending her. "She's shown great skill and style in keeping the act up for over three years. It was only bad luck that stopped her going the distance! Like I did, in my time!"

"Yes. You did." Said the Doctor. "But you were never found out and it was agreed to allow you to graduate so as not to embarrass the Guild!"

Emmanuelle looked at Lady T'Malia in surprise. Her tutor smiled back benevolently.

"My dear, did you never stop to wonder _why_ I am the only apparent woman Assassin?" she asked. "Or how I got here? I performed a deception like yours too. And there are others." she added, mysteriously. "I am by no means the _only _one. Nor the _first_!"

Mr. Downey, who had taught Emmanuel and quite liked him as a pupil, shook his head.

"We really have no alternative." He sighed. "The School Rules dictate."

And by a verdict of two to one, Emmanuel-Martin de Jeannedarc was expelled from the Assassins' Guild School.

Emmanuelle les Deux-Épées felt shamed and embarrassed and hurt for him. But at least she'd had a Guild School Education.

* * *

"And that is the story, _mes amies_." she concluded. "I assure you on my honour and that of my _patron _who I loved as an uncle, I am not here to spy on you. Indeed, I am not a qualified Assassin either. T'Malia told me to look upon this as a refresher course to renew old skills, where I receive absolutely no privileges, where teachers who knew me previously as Emmanuel-Martin de Jeanndarc have all been asked not to advertise the fact. I still have to submit to study and training for the year, and I cannot call myself Assassin until I pass the Final Run which in the past was denied to me, although I was prepared for it. In the meantime I am to encourage you, make my skills available to you, teach what I know, and generally to be inobtrusive and helpful. Am I accepted? Are we four friends again?"

There was a silence. Johanna was first to extend a hand. Emmanuelle took it.

Joan nodded and said, grumpily, "I've heard rumours about the Borogravian Army. This sort of thing's not uncommon, I suppose. Gel joins up, stuffs a pair of socks down the front of her britches and binds everything else down. She learns to swear and swagger, deceives the men, who are, as always, inobservant. Damn it, I've wondered myself about a couple I taught from here, whose voices _still_ hadn't broken in their final year!"

"So what did you do?" Alice asked, interested. Joan snorted.

"Me? Nothing! They'd been accepted as boys, so I treated them as boys! Not my place to do anything! I teach elocution. Can't go around asking a lad to drop his trousers on suspicion. Wrong end for voice production, for one thing, and besides it gets you a reputation! A bit traumatic for the young fellow, too!"

"Did you see Emmanuelle while she was a pupil here?" Johanna asked, after laughter had died down. Joan shook her head.

"Alas, no, m'dear. I was working out of my own school in town then. I didn't come here, the Guild School sent me pupils they thought could benefit. They were the only ones I got to see in those days. Evidently your Morporkian was good enough. But then, a Quirmian accent's always been thought of as an asset."

Alice frowned.

"Emmanuelle," she said, thoughtfully, "I'm assuming this was how Lady T'Malia made it into the Guild, in her time?"

"Most assuredly yes." came the reply. "She escaped detection all the way. It is hard to believe seeing her now, but after she graduated, the Dark Council had only two options. To inhume a mistake, or to accept it had been deceived, and discreetly accept her so as not to cause scandal. That has been informal policy ever since. If a girl manages to graduate without being detected, it is accepted as proof of resource, dedication and application to the Craft above and beyond the usual, and she is accepted into the Guild family. My bad fortune that I fell ill and was detected in hospital, non? There are few of us, but Lady T'Malia assures me they exist."

"Have you met any of the others?" Alice asked, excitedly.

"Women Assassins are expected to be extra-discreet and not to advertise the fact. Indeed, the Guild wished me not to make it public knowledge that I came so painfully close to deceiving them and graduating, and that I am here, in part, to correct the situation. Alice, _chere amie_, I know of two others for certain and suspect a third."

Emmanuelle refilled her coffee cup, at leisure. Alice Band leant forward in excitement.

She took time in answering the implied question.

"One was Remora Simmonds, who has since married a boy who was a fellow pupil, Nigel Selachii. Thus she ascended into the highest social order from fairly lowly beginnings. A second is one you may know from the Guild of Archaeologists, Lorenzo Cronk."**(5)**

"_Laurie Cronk!" _Alice exploded. _"Laurie? _She taught me most of what I know about Stealth Archaeology! We've been on digs together! She kept THAT quiet!"

"You were assuredly taught by the best, then." Emmanuelle said, with a shrug. "And I am not at liberty to divulge the identity of the other, who I merely _suspect_ studied here under subterfuge. I will only say her nephew is influential and well-connected and she serves these days to direct his thinking. That is all. Now are we friends again?"

Joan considered this. She looked at Alice, who nodded. Then both extended hands to Emmanuelle.

"There's a bottle of something on ice in the scullery." Joan said. "Get it, would you, Johanna, and four glasses?"

"Yes, Joan." Johanna said, and got up.

"Then we can plan tomorrow. This thing called _Introduction To Edificeering_. You've been here before, so make yourself useful, and not just decorative. What's all that about?"

* * *

**(1) **See my story** The Black Sheep, **which introduces Johanna's uncle, a man whose particular method of expressing dissidence drew the attention of BOSS to the family. His reasons for leaving may have offended the apartheid state, but they were not especially exalted ones. Johanna remembered later that mention of Uncle Balthazar was not encouraged, and at his brother's name her father's knuckles would go white and he would scowl horribly.

**(2) **Emmanuelle had heard the clearly left unsaid "_Not if you wish to carry on breathing and walking without being a Zombie_" implicit in this.

**(3) **His pupils, in recognition off this, nicknamed him "Cohen" after the barbarian hero.

**(4) **It isn't just witches. In _any_ gathering of strong-minded women, the youngest _always_ gets the dogsbody jobs like brewing the tea/coffee. It's multiversal.

**(5) **Remora Selachii and Lorenzo Cronk are Assassins and a Stealth Archaeologist who feature in the Pratchett-scripted computer game _**Discworld Noir.**_ Indeed, it is suspected that a Stealth Archaeologist with the suspicious initials L.C. was an early model for the character who later became Miss Alice Band in the canon.


	18. Intermezzo

Of course, despite the threat of death, despite the relentless training, there had been lighter moments, of humour, even farce, for the mature students. Right at the very start, when Alice and Emmanuelle had moved into a shared apartment with the semi-incarcerated Joan and Johanna, they had barely hung clothes up in the wardrobe and folded them into drawers when an appalling commotion was heard down in the yard. To Alice's ears, it had a certain indignant, harrumphing, quality to it, and her heart dropped.

"Oh, dear" she said. "Uncle Hughnon".

Joan raised a qustioning eyebrow.

"Well, he's not _actually_ my uncle" she amended. "An old family friend. He's my godfather. He was at seminary with my father."Joan joined her at the window.

"Oh my gracious! The Chief Priest? Your uncle? And he's not alone... who's that _troll_?" Emmanuelle's head lifted with a start and she ran to the window.

She groaned. Chrysophrase. But there was also...she nudged Joan, who smiled warmly. The woman loomed, and managed in her indignation and folded arms to look even more dangerous than the troll.

"_Dear_ old Whitlow!" Joan sighed. "such a friend... I think they're all here for us, girls!"

Behind the Chief Priest, the Troll crimelord and the University's housekeper stood two slightly built men: one in the universal Howandalaandian outfit of safari suit and floppy bush-hat, the other in black suit, natty embroidered waistcoat, with the transparent green visor of office projecting over his eyes.

"Scrote Jones, from the Gambler's Guild" Alice said. "And... somebody for you, Johanna?"

"My Onkle Piet" Johanna said. "The _Embassador."_

The four women watched as the gate guard from the Guild retreated, strictly at a loss as to how to handle this situation. After a couple of minor incidents with the resurgent watch and its troll members, especially Sergeant Detritus, the Guild was dimly begining to realise that there was nothing, anywhere, in the Black Library or the accumulated skills of living Assassins, concerning how to inhume trolls. They'd never been important enough to merit a Guild fee before. And the guards understood that inhuming the Chief Priest, the Head of the Gambler's Guild and a prominent foreign Ambassador could be perceived as being _impolite_, to say the least. Not to mention the terrible spectacle of an indignanant Mrs Whitlow, who was loudly and indignantly demanding to be allowed to see her friend Joan, _right now, _if you please!

Chrysophrase stood back, silently grinning, allowing human indignation to open doors. It summoned Downey and Cruces. The gate gurd gratefully let them take over.

"Got a BIG bone to pick with you, Donald!" Hughnon Ridcully boomed in his deepest fire-and-brimstone voice. "You sent two of your bloody soldiers to break into me own bloody palace and abduct me god-daughter. Young girl I faithfully promised her father I'd keep an eye on and look after! And I hear you've still got Alice here now because you held a crossbow to her head and made her sign up with you! I'd be obliged if you had the kindness to let me see her!"

"There's nothing like having friends, is there?" Joan whispered to Alice.

"Doctor Cruces, HWHAT have you done with my friend Joan Sanderson-Reeves?" Mrs Whitlow demanded. "And HWHAT is this absurd rumour going around that she's a mass murderer? I demand you let her OUT of her CELL now!"

"Es Embassador to Enkh-Morepork of the Union of Rimwerds Howendelaand, it hes come to my ettention thet you are ilegally detaining a citizen of my country. When this gets to Pretoria, et the very least, your country's Embassador will receive a note of protest. I must insist on my right to see my country's citizen and assure myself thet she is alive and being treated well. I have also protested to Lord Vetineri!"

There was a pause. Cruces said "Mr Jones?"

Scrote Jones adjusted the green visor of office, and said, reasonably "You know the protocol, Dr Cruces. Any Head of Guild has the right to request a private discussion with any other Head of Guild. I'm asking for that right in respect of one of my Guild members who appears to have dissappeared following her detention by Assassins' Guild representatives."

Cruces looked at Downey, and both nodded.

"Mr Chrysophrase?"

"Dere ain't nutting I can add dat ain't been said by dese four fine outstandin' pillars of der community" he said. "But at der time Mr Jones here lost his Guild member, she was workin' for me. I want to see she OK. And talk about transferring her contract from my management to yours. Poachin' my employees might be seen as impolite. As not havin' respect. And whatever else you Assassins is, you are people who have respect. I sure I not wrong in dat"

"Please, all of you come up to my office." Cruces said. "We can discuss this in private".

The women were not surprised when there was a polite knock at the door and they were invited to attend at the Master's office.

"As you can see, they are being treated with respect and consideration" Downey said. "We think of these ladies as each having great potential for the Guild, and we hope that they will become fully-fledged and trained Assassins in due course. We in fact welcome their having concerned friends outside the Guild gates, as this way it can be seen that we have nothing to hide or conceal. Arrangements can, of course, be made for visits to those who are unavoidably detained on Guild premises at the moment."

"Then you won't mind me talkin' to me god-daughter _in private_, Donald" Ridcully said, firmly. "if nothin' else I'm her god-father and spiritual advisor, and your Guild rules will of course respect freedom of religion and the sanctity of the confessional. Which means, Donald, I shall be visitin' me god-daughter r_egularly_."

"As is the right of both of you, Chief Priest" Downey said, smoothly.

"And if any of the other ladies here are Ionian, that right is open to them too." Ridcully said, flatly. "I'm sure I can find a chaplain of choice to any who aren't!"

"I am from Quirm and I used to see Bishop Band. He took me through First Communion and Confirmation" said Emmanuelle, doing her best to look innocent. Ridcully examined her through suspicious eyes, and then nodded.

Catching on, Joan said " I might not have been a good Ionian, but I prided myself on making it to Evensong as often as I could!"

This left Johanna, who said "Kerrigian United Reformed Temple of Io end Offler?"

Ridcully grinned. "There's a joke about your lot!" and insisted on telling it. "A priest of the Kerrigian Reform Temple goes into the chuch one day and finds a _black _woman on her knees in front of the altar. So of course he goes Bursar at her. _Woman! Whet you think you ere DOING! This is a white people's church! _She replies _But I'm scrubbin' the floor, baas!_ The priest calms down and says _Thet's elright. Thet's ellowed. But don't let me cetch you PRAYING while you're down there! Do you hear? "_

_"_Very droll, Chief Priest" observed Downey. Johanna had gone red.

Ridcully nodded. "Far as I'm concerned, these four ladies, including the one who through no fault of her own belongs to a colonial church with some errant doctrines, are members of Ionian churches, and therefore members of me congregation. Which makes me their _chaplain_, d'you hear, Donald?"

"Perfectly, Hughnon. Now each of you might want to speak privately to their friend or relative? Arrangements have been made. And I assure you you will not be eavesdropped."

* * *

_"Thirteen?"_

"I'm afraid so, Uncle Hughnon"

"Hmmm. Damn fine shootin', though. Good economy of arrows! And it comes under the Works of Duty and Necessity clause. Does it disturb you, though, Alice? Do you wake up at night tormented or troubled by the memory?"

"Never given it a second thought, Uncle Hughnon."

"Then the forgiveness and blessin' and absolution of the god Io goes with you and accompanies you down the road of your life. Amen!"

"Amen"

Hughon Ridcully sat back in his chir and a grin formed on his lips.

"I met that old schoolfriend of yours, Caroline Bradwell. She asked after you. This is where she's stayin', if you wanted to meet up, talk about old times!"

He passed over a note. Alice looked at him. _Surely he knows? My father discussed his demon-taken immodest daughter with his best friend and confessor..._

Alice was sure he winked.

"You're absolved of all sin. Remember? And by _me,_ not just any old priest. Go forth, and rejoice in the way Io made you!"

* * *

And in a neighbouring room, a conversation in the Wondalaans language. This has been translated into Morporkian for the benefit of the reader.:-

"Just say the word, Johanna, and you'll be on a ship back home to Howandalaand as quickly as we can manage."

"That's very kind, Uncle Pete. But I've decided to stay."

"Johanna?"

"OK, so they doped me with ether and carried me here against my will. They should not have done that. But now I'm here, something about this place really appeals to me, uncle. It's something I want to do. And think about the advantages. When I return home, I will have had a first-class training in everything to do with Assasination that can only be of benefit to the Staadt! They have a library here that you would not believe. I get to live in a _city_ for a few years. I often wonder if I could settle down to be a schoolteacher. Here I get to try it".

"Are you sure? I put in a complaint to Vetinari about this. I retract it, he's going to think that Pieter van der Graaf is generating a lot of light and sparks over nothing."**(1)**

**"**I'm sorry, Uncle. But I really want to do this. There is nothing, nothing, like this available at home! It seems to be a better deal than just becoming some landowner's wife and mother of his children back home. It's a vocation. A career. A profession. It attracts me!"

"So be it, Johanna." the Ambassador said, sadly. "I'll still complain to Vetinari concerning your abduction by force, obviously. But I will tell your parents you made a free choice to remain afterwards, in vocational training and work that may be vital to the Staadt in years to come. Obviously I'll check on your welfare from time to time, ensure you have enough money and your needs are met".

* * *

And next door:

"When I heard you were here, I asked Archchancellor Ridcully if he'd be prepared to come and support me and talk to Lord Downey on my behalf. You know how it is, the word of another man of class carries more weight than a mere housekeeper's."

"You've never been a mere housekeeper in your life, my dear Whitlow!"

"And then he said there'd be no need for him to come, as it wouldn't be fair for Downey to face down _both _Ridcully brothers. He gave me a letter of introduction to the Chief Priest, who kindly invited me along. But, Joan! You're a _prisoner_ here? I can't believe it!"

" A prisoner for now, yes."

" I hear there was some trumped-up charge that you'd murdered twenty-four people..."

"It was only eighteen. And yes, I did it."

Mrs Whitlow's fingers flew to her mouth in horror. And then, because she was Mrs Whitlow, her eyes became harder and her pose firmer. Besides, she was a fairly typical reader of the _Tanty Bugle, _Ankh-Morpork's premier penny-dreadful of murders most 'orrible.

"tell me all about it" she said. "Leave nothing out".

* * *

"Thank you, Scrote. You're a better friend than I deserve."

"At least it's all bottomed out now. The Troll's paid off. You've been accepted for training by the professionals. They've agreed that you may remain a Gamblers' Guild member with full privileges. Which includes my right to visit to check on your welfare. All you have to do is learn and stay alive. It's never _straightforward_ with you, is it?"

"You'd never want me any other way, _mon cher ami. Mon tres cher ami_".

Their hands met accross the table, two friends who understood each other.

"Oh, by the way. There are odds out on your surviving the training course."

Emmanuelle wasn't offended. This was the Guild of Gamblers, after all.

"What sort of odds?"

"Two to one says you'll pass. Five to three you'll fail."

"Put five hundred on me passing, _cher ami._ A little extra to work for_._ And can you work out odds on Alice and Joan and Johanna? Especially Joan. Nobody expects _la vielle_ to pass, she is _troppe ancienne_, but I perceive the old lady has steel in her back and will surprise us all. We could make a killing on her, _cher ami_! "

* * *

"Dat will do nicely" Chrysophrase said, taking the money pouch. He signed the agreement. In its essentials, the parchment that said that a donation would be paid by the Assassins' Guild to a recognised troll charity. This gesture of symbolic goodwill and charity would be accepted by Chrysophrase, as full compensation for the transfer of the contract of one Emmanuelle -Marie Lapoignard les Deux Epees to the Assassins' Guild. It was also agreed that if Chrysoprase needed a hit-person in the future, he would preferentially approach the Guild to request Emmanuelle's services, should she survive training. As this looked likely to be a repeat engagement, perhaps even a Retained Assassin agreement, a certain amount of discounting could be factored in re. fees.

"A pleasure to negociate with you" said Dr Cruces. "Do call again."

"And everyone's up for the Octeday poker game, as usual?" Scrote said, cheerfully. "Gamblers' Guild rules, aces low, Brindisian Hold-'em. Got Mr Boggis from the Thieves' Guild and Queen Molly from the Beggars so far. "

"I'm in" said Cruces.

"Got the 'evenin' free. Don't see why not!" said Ridcully.

"Dis troll will play. But wid' a clean unmarked deck!" agreed Chrysoprase.

* * *

One day, about halfway through the year, somebody had noticed the clauses in the Concordat that said that the Assassin should be at home in any company and able to play at least one musical instrument, as well as fluent in at least two languages.

The senior class were therefore summoned to the Music Room with their instruments of choice, to prove their proficiency in front of the Guild's music teacher, Doctor von Ubersetzer. This had caused Alice a moment of angst, as it meant her guiltiest secret of all was about to be exposed to the world. She agonized about it for a day or two, then thought _oh, to hell with it, it had to come out sometime. _A quick note to Uncle Hughnon meant a very junior Deacon was despatched from the High Priest's Palace, with evidence of a guilty secret that went right back to her schooldays in Quirm. Alice received him with thanks, looked round twice to see nobody was watching, gave him a donation to temple funds and suggested it went straight to the Deacon's Benevolent Fund, then scuttled to her room to hide the evidence.

On the appointed day, she and a group of the other mature students were admitted to the Music Room to have their musical proficiency tested to see if it was up to approved Guild standards. Alice sat there, her instrument case at her feet, daring people to comment. Although it drew puzzled looks, nobody commented.

Joan Sanderson-Reeves went first, apologising for being a bit rusty after thirty years, but what she'd learned at finishing school should come back to her, with luck.

"Proceed" said the fussy little Doctor, tucking his thumbs inside his waistcoat.

Joan then played a competent Hergenian piece on the concert harp, announcing it as by Hergen's national composer Turnip O'Caravan, and called "Sweet Joan", **(2)** which was why she'd learnt it all those years ago. It actually wasn't bad, Alice thought: full of the trills and turns and dancing little passages that were characteristic of the Hergenian native music style.

The Doctor nodded, appreciatively. "Very good. I would call that a pass. Next?"

Johanna Smith-Rhodes stepped forward with a guitar that had travelled Howondaland with her.

"This is a song of my people end my country. It is entitled, _De Broederbondlied_."

It was performed in Howondalaans, slow, strong, building to a repeated chorus, with a passion and a dignity about it.

Alice saw that her classmate Piers Verlinden was looking uncomfortable and shuffling his feet. Being a native Sto Kerrigian, the Boor language of Howondaland would be intelligible to him: whatever he was hearing wasn't exactly a sentiment he could stand four-square behind.

_Probably something about being the master race who have the right to rule over kaffirs and lesser races, Alice_ thought. _The Sto Kerrigians got rid of their warlike, pugnacious and adventurous people four hundred years ago by packing them all off to the colonies. The ones left behind are pacifists and rather dull stolid types who like building windmills, carving clogs, growing tulips and smoking strange herbs in coffeeshops. For a modern Sto Kerrigian, meeting a Boor must be like seeing an evolutionary throwback. Culture shock. **(3**__**)**_

"I think a pass. A good solid voice and very competent playing. And the song was about?"

"The struggle of the Boor people for freedom, self-expression end a nation united, in the face of the enemy inside end outside!".

Emmanuelle went third, unpacking her violin, preparing to play, until Doctor von Ubersetzer lifted a hand and said

"If you permit, madame? I just vish to check…"

He turned the violin over in his hands. "Ah yes, the crossbow fitted in here? And merely playing a sequence of minor chords followed by a major fifth activated the trigger and inhumed the client? Most ingenious, my dear. I vished to assure myself it was not loaded before you began playing, you understand."

"_D'accord_" said Emmanuelle, and played a series of hauntingly evocative Quirmian airs that had Alice aching for the city of her childhood. She was passed with distinction.

Piers Verlinden played a cello competently, and then it was Alice's turn.

"Unusual. Proceed"

Her eyes daring the room not to laugh, Alice inflated her cheeks, engaged the mouthpiece, and started to play _Tubas in The Moonlight._

"Look" she patiently said, later, "When it came to sorting out instruments to learn at school, I was late that morning, and all that was left was the tuba or the bassoon since nobody else wanted them. I took the one that made the less obviously farting noises. I'm proud of it, OK? I played tuba in the school orchestra!"

Tired of merely providing the oompah bass line for the brass instruments seen as more versatile, she and Caroline Bradwell had written a piece of whimsy called _Tubas in The Moonlight, _allowing their maligned and belittled instrument a solo or two.

_Tubas in the moonlight_

_Playing for me all night_

_Sing the song I want to hear;_

_Am I only dreaming?_

_Am I only scheming?_

_Stars above me_

_Shining brightly_

_Why can't she be_

_Sitting here beside me?_

_Tubas in the moonlight_

_Will bring my loved one home!_ **(4)**

The music room was silent. Alice lowered her tuba.

"Vell" said Doctor von Ubersetzer, "It is entirely possible that what I have just heard will prove to be an unforgettable performance. I award you a passing grade, miss Band."

Alice smiled, grimly. At least it was over and she'd satisfied the course assessors she could proficiently play a musical instrument…

"Well, do you think the Guild of Musicians will send their enforcers round to demand we pay their membership fees?" Joan asked, brightly. "After all, we've just played in public in Ankh-Morpork without being Guild members, so we owe them seventy-five dollars each!"

"Bring 'em on!" growled Alice. "Satchelmouth and the Ford Grisham Harmony Singers. NO problem! I feel like I want to inhume somebody!"

Doctor von Uberseltzer grinned. "Ladies, you _do_ know you are not allowed to inhume anybody until you are fully licenced? However, as a music-lover, I _could_ easily look zer other vay vhile you carry out a contract on the officials of zer Musicians' Guild. I am sure you are all capable, and the city's musical community vould extend their undying thanks to you."

The other half of the equation was language skills. A quick audit revealed that the bulk of the Mature Student intake was, regrettably, monoglot Morporkian. This regrettable state could not be allowed to persist, so some sort of language tuition must be fitted in, so that everyone met the minimum requirement of fluency in at least one other language.

Alice, bilingual in Quirmian and Morporkian, as well as Ecclesiastical Latatian, Classical Ephebian, Tsortean, Djelibeybian and Omnian, had no problems here. Neither did Emmanuelle (Quirmian, Morporkian, Brindisian, Genoan and other Latatian-derived languages). Joan spoke a sort of stiff, dormal, Quirmian, but it was rusty. Johanna had to be told, very carefully, that her own native bilinguality didn't _quite_ satisfy Guild requirements, and she had to study another language from scratch. She opted for Überwaldean, on the grounds it was as closely related to her native language as Morporkian was, only in the opposite direction. This led her to Doctor Graumunchen, the resident teacher.

Alice and Emmanuelle found themselves jointly leading an evening class, twice a week, in Quirmian, as the default "foreign language", for the rest of their peers. To their surprise, they found themselves enjoying the mechanics and processes of teaching, and deriving satisfaction from communicating knowledge to other students. They were becoming trained Assassins, yes: but they were beginning to become something more than that.

Teachers.

* * *

**(1) **I know. I know. Another low pun. Or I _could_ have been referring to the 1970's Dutch experimental progressive rock band _Van Der Graaf Generator. _

**(2)** Ireland (Hergen)'s national composer is _Turlough O'Carolan_, who turned Chieftains-style folk music into respectable baroque and orchestral pieces. One of his better-known harp pieces is _Sí Siobhain gheall a'spearbhan _(Sweet Joan, fairest among women). The lyrics are actually scathingly sarcastic and depict Joan as being neither sweet nor fair and having the intellectual capacity of a small twittering garden bird. But then, they're rarely sung…

**(3)** Just in case you think I'm getting at South Africans, this theory was actually advanced to me by a native Dutch girl, who was absolutely appalled at encountering Afrikaaners for the first time. She likened it to being a Cro-Magnon man who has discovered he has Neanderthal relatives.

**(4)** On Roundworld, performed by prankster performers The BonzoDogDoodahBand in the style of a 1920's jazz-blues fusion. The BDDB knocked around with people as disparate as Monty Python and the Beatles and at their best are very, very, funny.

**Author's Note:-**

For the benefit of non-British readers who may not understand the brass band tradition, a world-famous British ensemble, in brass circles, are the _**Black Dyke Mills Band.**_ On a tour of the USA, they were very seriously asked to change their name, as it was held to be politically incorrect and insulting to lesbians of colour. This amused them all the way back to Yorkshire, where a Black Dyke is nothing more than an embankment holding back water which just also happens to be dark in coloration. Now I wanted Alice Band to be a player of a seriously incongruous musical instrument, I chose the tuba. She wears Assassin's black. I've established her in other stories as being discreetly lesbian. There has to be a possibly unkind joke here, but I can't work "mills" into it. Ah well, this may be for the best.


	19. Visions of Johanna

_Another slightly revised and re-written chapter. With more bugs and typos taken out and some added detail that was too good not to include. _

The members of the Mature Students' Class were down on the Butts with a variety of strung bows they had drawn from the Guild armoury. It was a pleasant warm spring day, and the attitude was a relaxed and easy one, as this was the sort of class where somebody ran the risk of being killed only if they were very stupid or very unlucky.

The Butts was a large open field in the city centre, on the Morpork side of the river. It had been spared being built on because of the old, old, city law that said all male citizens over the age of twelve and under sixty should spend at least three hours every day practicing their archery. While this law had fallen largely into disuse, archery remained both a popular hobby and a necessity for other occupational groups, several of whom were influential enough to block any moves by property developers to "acquire" the fields.

By informal arrangement its use was shared between the various interest groups. The City Watch taught its recruits the essentials of archery here – or at least, Alice Band thought, as she watched Fred Colon ineffectually trying to convey instruction, it _tried_ to.

The city regiments taught recruits here, and those Guilds whose members needed a grounding, such as Thieves and Assassins, brought their school pupils here There was room enough for everyone, and on this particular afternoon, it was Watch recruits and mature trainee Assassins.

Alice had asked for and got a group of school-age pupils to look after the weapons and guard their equipment against opportunist theft. The understanding was that she'd take them in twos and threes and give them some sort of tuition alongside the adult entrants. It also gave Alice some practice at dealing with the pupils, which she'd need if she was going to go on and teach at the school.

Right, OK. Martin's got his half of the class down into the trench behind the target line. He's lifted the red flags to alert people that shooting is in progress and if you step between them, you are doing so at your own risk. Time to make a start.

"My chosen target is Number Seven from the left." she said, in a clear carrying voice. "Observe!"

She took a deep breath and angled the Hublandish double-recurved hunting bow she had carried since early adulthood. She tested the breeze with a damp finger and adjusted the angle and direction of the bow slightly.

"Six aimed arrows at one hundred yards."

Alice's fingers blurred as she loaded – drew – loosed, directing six arrows at the target in the shortest possible time.

She lowered her bow, aware that not only were the Assassins watching, Fred Colon and the Watch recruits were paying full attention. From the butts below the target, a pointer was raised, indicating five inners and one outer. That is, a tight grouping of five arrows, any of which would have killed, and one that would have wounded. She took the class down to the target so they could see, inviting Colon and his class to follow. Archery was her speciality, after all: she had no false modesty, she knew she was good at it. And it did no harm to advertise. It might also be good for public relations if a little of what she knew spread to the Watch: besides, Colon was such an appallingly bad instructor it made her teeth grate. She felt a little bit sorry for those Watch recruits, if truth be told. After all, like Assassins they'd be facing sudden death in dark places too, but for a fraction of the money. If knowing how to use a bow properly might make the difference, she didn't mind them cadging a bit of learning off her.

She turned to her mix of student Assassins and Watchmen.

"Many of you may be wondering how I did this" she said, indicating five arrows occupying a space the size of a saucer. The target had the shape of a human attacker on it, running in the direction of the bowman and holding a spear at the high port. **(1)**

All five arrows occupied a tight close grouping in the chest: the sixth had deviated off to its right and perforated the figure's right arm.

"Not quite perfection, as the sixth arrow coincided with a higher breeze. Which makes it all the more important that you get off as many aimed shots in the time you are allowed. Unless you really know what you are doing, never consider one arrow to be enough. That is a form of over-confidence."

She paused, let the message sink in, and went on:

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, magical in what I did. Any of you, with attention to basic principles and enough practice, can perform at least as well."

Alice looked around her, but her moment of satisfaction was marred by a murmuring whisper.

'_ere, those warrior women in Samothrip or somewhere… they was said to be lethal with the bow and arrow!_

…_yes, but look at the price they had to pay. Dint they have to have a…you know… an _**err, um**_, cut off? Otherwise it got in the way of the bow? _

_Think she's from Samothrip?_

_Well, it looks from here as if she's got _**both**_ of her…_

Alice cut the conversation short, a red flush coming to her cheeks. She'd been here before. Any woman who'd even casually glanced at a bow and arrows had been here before. Never mind that they'd just seen a virtuouso display of archery, even if Alice said so herself, sooner or later it all boiled down to… and what irritated was that it was just a _myth_. Pure and simple. But some myths carried _force._

Ah well, time to set them right…

"Gentlemen, just a _very_ quick history lesson before we proceed!" Alice called. "The gentlemen from the City Watch are right in saying that in classical times, there was a civilisation in Samothrip – which is modern-day Kythia, incidentally – where women fought on equal terms with men. In fact, it was something of a _matriarchy._"

Alice produced a throwing knife from a hidden recess of her clothing, and casually unpicked a shoulder seam.

_Do this carefully and I can get it repaired later. _

"I have been to Kythia on archaeological digs and unearthed evidence to prove the women warriors existed in fact. My own bow is based on a model still in use all the way across the Central Continent between the Hub and the sea, in fact. We discovered similar weapons in tombs in Kythia, giving the double-recurved bone composite bow a very long ancestry.

"But, as I have heard Assassins' Guild students whispering about it – and if they paid attention in their history classes, _they should know better! – _then I am going to be forced to put you right on a point of detail."

Alice glared at the offending students, who shuffled and looked away.

"Yes. It is true that Samothripian warrior women had to cut off what has been described as an _err…ummm…_ because if left intact, it would foul the draw and interfere with the smooth action of the bowstring."

Alice sheathed the knife and gave her cuff a slight tug. Her sleeve concertina'd down from her shoulder to the wrist, leaving her whole arm bare, except for a leather vambrace on her forearm. She held it up.

"In the Kythian language, an _errr'um _is a **_sleeve_."** she said. "And take it from me, there's nothing like a loose sleeve for fouling a bowstring!"

She smiled.

"There is absolutely _no_ evidence for the proposition that Samothripian, nor indeed Kythian, warrior women underwent a partial mastectomy." she said, sternly. "Take it from me, gentlemen, there is absolutely no need for a woman archer to undergo such mutilation. And if you don't believe me, there are three women present who can all testify to you I am personally one hundred per cent intact in the bosom department. Ask any of them. In fact, I counted them myself this morning when I got up, and there are definitely two. Now have we _all_ got that out of our systems? Yes?

Emmanuelle grinned and gave a thumbs-up, Johanna and Joan nodded and smiled.

"And we are now going to go over some of the basic principles! Sergeant Colon, I've no objection to you and your men and women joining forces with us for the afternoon?"

"Thank you, m'lady!" Colon said, looking relieved. He had been having his own private speculation about Alice's breasts.

"_Noblesse Oblige!__**" **_Alice murmured. Then she set about teaching.

"Over short distances, up to about sixty yards, an arrow will travel to its target at a flat trajectory." She paused, then rephrased her words in Colon-speak. "It will go in a straight line. Therefore if you hold the bow just _so_, and point your finger at the target _accurately_, you _will_ hit the target."

Alice had her class pointing unloaded bows at each other and at the targets repeatedly, until she was satisfied enough to let them loose at the targets with real arrows at fifty yards. To her pleasure and gratification, everybody hit, even Colon, who beamed as if he'd achieved a career best. She allowed them all several more looses at fifty, so as to build a sense of confidence, then progressively pulled back at ten-yard intervals. At sixty, everyone still hit: at seventy, the first misses happened; at eighty, nobody hit.

"Now this where it gets interesting" she said. As we move further away from the target, our accuracy decreases when loosing arrows over a flat trajectory. This is because?"

Nobody answered.

"This is because the power driving the arrow derives from the bent bow, which is focused by the bowstring interfacing with the nock in the arrow's base. As the arrow flies further from the bow it loses this initial power as a second force, the force of gravity, pulls it down. Therefore we expect to see, as here, that all the arrows which have missed the target have fallen short and in the ground some way in front of it. To compensate for arrows falling short, what do we do?"

Fred Colon raised a diffident finger.

"You… point the arrow a little bit upwards, miss?"

"Well done, sergeant, absolutely correct! We _elevate _the bow. You are now thinking in terms of the arrow following a _curved_ path to its target. As it rises in the air with the full force of the bow behind it, this compensates for the action of gravity pulling the arrow downward. This curve is called a _parabola_, by the way, but I'll spare you the maths. Now. Think of your bow-arm as being like the minute hand on a clock. When you loose flat, your arm is at exactly a quarter to the hour. In between the quarter and the hour, there are exactly how many possible positions for the minute hand? "

She waited while they worked it out.

"Sixteen, miss?" said one of the younger Assassins.

"Sixteen." Alice confirmed. "Although in practice we never use _this_ one, not unless you are absolutely sure of a hit, say on a large flying bird or a Klatchian magic carpet."

She posed the act of pointing the bow and an arrow directly upwards.

"As what goes up comes down again, in this case as an arrow with lethal force behind it. Again, over-confidence. But as a general rule of thumb, for every fifteen yards over seventy, elevate your arm and the arrow by another minute. Let's line up at eighty-five yards and try it. Go!"

More hits, more confidence. Alice passed from archer to archer, watching their individual postures, correcting, fine-tuning, showing them how to adapt the minute rule to their own bows and body strength. Even Colon, a man marinaded in nearly forty years of bad habits, was hitting the target with every second arrow at well over a hundred yards, which Alice privately thought was the best she could get out of him.

She also paid particular attention to one Watch recruit, a lance-constable with long flowing dark hair, taking the girl in hand, moulding her body into Alice's to demonstrate best posture, using physical closeness to mirror the Watch girl's body to Alice's.

_Be careful, Alice. You're not on the pull, you're teaching her how to use a bow and nothing more, _she reminded herself, noting to her pleasure how the Watch girl didn't pull away and seemed to like the body contact. (At the end of the day, however, Alice was pleased to leave with a name and address, ostensibly for private lessons at some unspecified future time).

At the end of her appointed hour, Alice handed over control of the class to Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who then took a lesson in Introduction to Crossbows. Johanna divided the class up into Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced, including the Watchmen and spending a little time with each, demonstrating, observing, correcting and improving. In the Advanced class, Alice learnt to fire pistol crossbows from the hip with minimal or no time to formally aim the shot.

At the end of the day, Fred Colon diffidently approached Alice and Johanna and thanked them for their help.

"To be honest, m'lady, sometimes I wonder if I'm a bit out of my depth with this."

"Think nothing of it, sergeant. You do know Lord Downey believes here should be more co-operation between the Guild and the Watch, if only because there's been some bad feeling in the past. He believes that as good citizens, we should give every co-operation to the Watch. Except in circumstances where it would prejudice Guild business, of course".

"Of course" Colon replied, weakly. Alice didn't add _And Downey is going to be quietly pleased that Commander Vimes will be very embarrassed, and will no doubt go Bursar, when he learns his recruits were trained in _**effective **_archery and crossbowmanship by the Assassins' Guild. But you'll find that out, Fred, when you report in. _

Then Watch Recruit Mercedes de Toleda **(2)** walked up, and shyly said "hello" to Alice, followed by an exchange of names and addresses and an offer of private tuition.

That night, in the interests of closer co-operation between the Guild and the Watch, Alice took an overnight leave from the Guild. Well, she reasoned it created good feeling and mutual respect between the two organizations. Besides, the itch had become almost painful since she'd last seen Caroline, some months before. There had been one moment, with Johanna, where her self-control had nearly crumbled and she'd very nearly…

* * *

Sleeping arrangements in the ladies' apartment meant that they had to share two bedrooms. By initial agreement, Alice and Joan had shared one room, whilst Johanna and Emmanuelle shared the other. The training at first had been so hard and so relentless that Alice could have shared a twin bedroom with a small bull elephant and not noticed. Despite the fact Joan, who had never married, had developed a single-sleeper's snore that could saw large logs, Alice generally found she was asleep he moment her head hit the pillow.

About three months in, Johanna asked if they could rethink the sleeping arrangements.

"Why, m'dear?" Joan asked. Johanna coloured.

"It's Emmie. Don't get me wrong, I like her and she cen be verry kind, but she… goes eway at nights and comes beck yawning in the early morning."

"Oh, we all know that!" Joan said, dismissively. "Some wretched man or other. Damn gel's like a cat!"

"She does make a good match with Scrote Jones, though." Alice had said. "In his own unique way he's an extraordinarily honest man".

"If she stuck to the same man, it'd be a good start! If she learnt to charge, she'd be a born Seamstress!" Joan said, "But I suppose we all have to make our own arrangements in that department, don't we, Alice?"

Alice had an uneasy feeling Joan suspected more than she was letting on.

"It's not her disappearing that gets to me. It's thet she insists on _telling_ me ebout it, every lest little detail, when she gets home in the morning!"

"Ah. I can see where that would be a problem. Johanna, my dear, just between the three of us, you've never? You know? With a man?"

Johanna went red and shook her head. Alice sighed. A virgin, a nymphomaniac and a dyke. What a trio they made. And Joan…

"Oh, when Harold was alive, I gave him everything." Joan said, remembering a faraway time. "Young officer, just off to the war with Pseudopolis, it was _expected._ He never came back."

She sighed.

"I never got the hang of the physical stuff, it was all jolly sticky and possibly unhygienic. But afterwards, just yourself and the lucky chap together in the dark with morning a long way away… that made it all _worthwhile_, somehow. And after he died, I wondered if there's be another, and put it to one side for later, and then the later became too late. Which is why I'd never object to any of you gels doing what you have to in the way that's best for you, even if one of you _does _have the morals of an alley cat. And you. Johanna, you don't need my advice, but keeping it to yourself doesn't help. You ought to be keeping an eye out for the right man before "for later" gets to be "too late". And "too late" happens sooner than you think, believe me!"

There was an uneasy silence. Alice didn't know how to fill it.

"Teases you about it, does she? Says she can fix you up with a good man to take the burden of virginity away?"

Johanna shuddered, and nodded.

"Right!" Joan said, decisively. "Though I couldn't have asked for a better room-mate than Alice, I'll move in with our Quirmian minx. Sort her out! You move your things to Alice's room. Dear Emmanuelle isn't here to object, so she can't bloody well argue with it, can she?"

And so they changed rooms.

On the first night, Alice came in from the bathroom, towelling her hair , She put a night-dress on without a second thought, then turned to see Johanna staring at her through wide-open eyes.

"Ellice… do you often welk around nekked?"

"We all are under the clothes!" Alice said. "Joan never objected. She thought it was quite healthy and liberating! Besides, you can now testify to my being completely intact, just in case anyone else brings up the Amazon myth about women archers."

Johanna was bright red. Alice sighed, and got into bed.

"Your turn in the bathroom" she said, trying hard not to stare as the other girl undressed. But she sneaked enough looks to assure herself that Johanna had a gorgeous body. _Freckles! Everywhere! I want to count them! I want to kiss every one! That almost pellucid red-head's skin, white almost, where it isn't weathered by Howondalandian sun… How long is it now since Caroline… two, three months? Aaaargh, I need a woman!_

Two or three hours into slep, Alice was awoken by somebody nearby. A weight on her bed. A smell of _woman_…

Johanna was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking nervous.

"Ellice?"

"Astfgwl?"

"Look, this sounds bed. I'm sorry. But I'm lonely and I'm scared. Cen I get in with you?"

Alice made room, and the girl got in. There was a bit of wriggling for comfort, and Johanna settled into Alice in the classical spoons position, her head resting on Alice's left arm and shoulder. Alice was stuck for what to do with her right arm, but settled for embracing Johanna's waist as the least controversial option. She felt toned lean belly muscle under the nightdress, and things stirred in her.

_Could it be she's… or at least bi-curious? _

She heard Johanna fall asleep and snore gently.

_Damn. Damn. Drat. She really _did_ only want to be close to somebody else. Sod. _

Alice fell asleep dratting emotionally retarded Howondalandians, and awoke, with a guilty start, to realize Johanna was still fast and happily asleep while she, Alice, had moved both hands onto Johanna's breasts. She was about to move them, but thought

_Whoa, she's asleep. No hurry! _and enjoyed the weight and the feel and the motion of a firm young breast in each palm. Alice licked her own lips, and tested the nipples – both were very, very, perky and erect and yielded under her exploring finger like the stem of an apple. She felt Johanna mumble and move, her buttocks moving against Alice's hypersensitive midsection.

_Stop it, Alice Band, stop it right now! _

Alice reluctantly let go and moved her hands downwards, and eventually fell into uneasy sleep.

In the morning, Johanna said "Thenk you. I can't tell you how much I needed thet!" and she wriggled in Alice's arms until they were face-to-face, and gave her a quick friendly kiss on the lips.

Alice cuddled her, full body from head to toes,_ and thought Dratted girl! Does she KNOW what she's doing to me? _

"Emmanuelle thought you were a _moffie_." Johanna said.

"A what?"

"A _moffie_, A dyke. A lesbian. She said she could tell. She likes you, Ellice, whetever you are, and said it's your business. But I can tell you're not."

"You can?" Alice was intrigued.

"When I saw you naked. You don't shave. Down below. Everybody knows _moffies_ shave down there. Well-known fect!"

_How do these stories get around, _Alice wondered.

"And you didn't try enything on with me"

_That's not for want of temptation, you naïve child! _.

They got up, got dressed, and went about their day's training.

* * *

But on the night of the archery lesson, Alice Band found herself giving personal tuition, of a sort, to the Watchwoman Mercedes de Toleda.

_Mercedes. Mer-they-dez. Such a beautiful name. It suggests a sleek high-powered beautiful-looking….expensive… high-performance… thing…. Like its owner…. Ooooh YES! _

"¡Si! ¡Ah, tocamela! ¡Besamela màs! "

Alice felt her body slipping and sliding and writhing off and over Mercedes, all thoughts of Johanna forgotten, all visions of Johanna no longer conquering her mind, no longer keeping her awake past the dawn.

Sex with Mercedes was a perfect moment for Alice. She knew she couldn't hold it, it was a pointless as trying to keep hold of a handful of rain. But the dark girl was the perfect lover for that transient moment and just what Alice needed to stop herself from exploding in some catastrophic way.

"Don't get used to me, _querida._" Mercedes whispered in her ear during the afterwards, where arms and legs are a sweaty tangle and fingertips dance a ballet on bare skin. Alice moved her leg gently up the other woman's flank and back.

"I train with the Watch in Ankh-Morpork, I pass out of their school, I return home to Toleda and join the _Guardia Civilia_ there. We have perhaps a couple of months for the loving, _arquerita!_ "

It was enough. Enough to keep Alice sane. She also learnt something of the Toledan language, like yet unlike to Quirmian and Genuan, in Mercedes' bed.

"And I am also pleased, _arquerita_, you have two breasts."

It was enough. Alice felt reasonably halfway content for the first time in months.

The next morning, returning to the shared flat, a surprise awaited her.

Steeling herself for questions of the "Where have _you _been all night, then?" variety, and suppressing a contented yawn, she was instead informed by Joan that the four of them had been invited to a sherry and an almond slice in the Master's office.

"The drill is to politely decline the almond slice." Joan informed them. "Apparently they've got something in common with the sort of cakes I used to bake for...special... customers."

Alice nodded, aware of Joan's past history.

"What's it about, and why just us?" she asked.

"Something to do with religion. That's all I know."

"We were waiting for you!" Emmanuelle remarked, a grin on her face. "So where did YOU stop out to all night, _cherie_?"

Alice put on a gnomic smile, and knocked on the Guild Master's door.

"Ah, ladies!" Dr Downey welcomed them. "I was able to take the opportunity to reflect on what was said by Chief Priest Ridcully when we met in this office concerning the appointment of an Ionian chaplain to this School. On reflection, I considered that to be a very constructive suggestion indeed, and the Dark Council were only too willing to advance the funding necessary to establish a salaried chair. Please do take a glass of sherry, each of you. Almond slice? No? I understand completely about the need to be figure-conscious!"

"Anyway, as all four of you expressed a deep association with the Ionian religion, I considered you should be the first to meet our new member of staff, who after interviews and background checks we consider to be the ideal man for this position. The Chief Priest considers that he is absolutely ideal to act as your chaplain and personal confessor." Downey paused, and an enigmatic smile crossed his face.

"The Chief Priest did emphasise to me that no part of this arrangement is negotiable. It's all or nothing, if you understand me. He also emphasised that this is most personally applicable to Miss Smith-Rhodes, who he considers to be most in need of personal enlightenment in several important respects. He's keen to ensure she accepts there will be no offered alternative."

Johanna looked puzzled, but said nothing. Downey nodded. He pressed a buzzer on the desk.

"You may now enter, Chaplain"

He was in his late twenties, tall, athletic and well-built, dressed in the usual sober junior cleric's outfit of a black suit, with grey dickie attached to a white clerical collar. He smiled warmly at the ladies, revealing a mouth full of perfect white teeth.

In a completely black face.

"Well, _bonjour_!" Emmanuelle breathed, running her eyes over his body.

Joan suppressed a chuckle. Alice looked round at Johanna, whose mouth had fallen open in astonishment and horror. Unheeded, her sherry glass had dropped and had spilt on the carpet.

Downey went on, smoothly, "Ladies, may I introduce the Slightly Reverend Clement N'Effabl? Among his other accomplishments, he is a graduate of this School. His religious inclinations led him to seek ordination in the Church of Blind Io, and he has just returned to Ankh-Morpork - recalled, in fact, by personal order of the Chief Priest - from missionary work among his own people in Kwa'Zululand."

Downey smiled, serenely.

"I'm sure, miss Smith-Rhodes, you will have a_ lot_ in common with a priest from your neighbouring country".

The Reverend N'Effabl circulated, shaking hands with the ladies.

"Miss Band! A delight. The Chief Priest stressed he was very fond of you." His voice was upper-class Morporkian, tinged with Howondalaand.

"Madame Deux-Epees! _Quelle plaisir_. " He inclined his head and kissed her hand. Emmanuelle looked amused and flattered. "The Chief Priest said you're the very popular one who makes friends easily." **(4)**

"Miss Sanderson-Reeves! I was advised to be at my most mannered and courteous with you. I hope I pass the test"**(5)**

Joan smiled and said "In my experience, young priests always are mannered and courteous people. You're no exception!"

Then, the Slightly Reverend Clement N'Effable was face to face with the fourth, who'd recovered a little of her composure by then. The three other ladies, and Downey, watched the confrontation with interest.

"In this country, among the nobility, there's a tradition that the oldest son inherits. The spare sons, who are needed if anything happens to the heir, are then packed off to respectable professions, such as the law, the military, medicine, Assassination, et c. Sons thought to be too stupid and slow to be bankers are sent to the priesthood. It works for us too, miss Smith-Rhodes. I'm the twenty-fourth son, by the third wife, of the Paramount Chief. Some might call that number of sons over-doing it somewhat, but it's the way with us. My father thought that it might be useful to have a son with a Morporkian education, so I became the first Kwa'Zulu student at this school. The education, the training, the social contacts, you see. It was hard, but I was fairly treated by people who saw nothing problematical about my skin colour. There weren't any white Howondalaandians among the teaching faculty then, you see." He held her gaze, but didn't extend his arm.

Watching, Alice thought _Ah. Now I perceive why Downey agreed so readily to appointing a Chaplain... give Johanna as she currently is any black pupils, especially Howondalandians, and it would be unfair on them. You can see the problem straight away. _

"You inhumed my uncle and his extended family, miss Smith-Rhodes." He held up a hand to silence her retort. "I grieved then and still grieve now. But please be assured that I have no personal animosity towards you. In war, these things happen. Last summer, a Boor _kommando_ crossed the Ulungi, intent on dealing retribution against my people for some implied slight or other."

"To follow end destroy border raiders and cettle thieves!" Johanna hissed, finding her voice. Clement held up a hand again.

"I was at home as a missionary. My father ordered me to my regiment, my family _impi_, as a warrior-priest. I went to war. We surrounded the Boors in regimental strength. They chose to go to ground, making a final stand on a _kopje. _By night, I crawled up to their position and introduced myself as a priest of Io. I communicated to them an offer from my father, that if they surrendered their horses and weapons, we would give them food and water and a safe conduct back to your side of the Ulunghi. I was glad to do this as there must be some good people among your people, and at some point we're going to have to put the weapons down and talk, yes?"

"Yes, but on _our_ terms!" Johanna said, flatly.

"The slavery you call apartheid? I think not. Anyway, Kommandant Retief talked to me. I explained I'd been educated and ordained in Ankh- Morpork. He said _'Thenk Gott! I'm telking with en educated men, end not a nigger!'_ Which is when I realised we had a problem. I told him my name. He was quiet. I said I was a Zulu. But one educated abroad. But would he not listen? Then they started firing at me. I knew then they would not listen. And the end result was the same. We took the horses and their weapons. No Boor was left alive. But then, neither were nearly two hundred Kwa'Zulu."

He held Johanna's gaze. She said "I knew Maurice Retief. I went to his memorial."

"I knew my uncle. And his wives. And my cousins. And those who died in that battle with Retief. I sang in their death-song and later, said the Ionian funeral rite for them. Our peoples need a new relationship, miss Smith- Rhodes."

Johanna was silent for a long time and finally said

"Et least here, a long way eway from home, we cen perheps _telk._ Just don't expect me to be your best friend!"

"I wasn't. At least we're talking and not trying to kill each other. That's a start."

"Call it a local ceasefire. My onkle the Embessador has to go to diplometic parties where the Kwa'Zulu embessedor is present. They can menage to eccept the presence of the other without refighting the Bettle of the Ulundhi. I think in the circumstences we should too."

Clement laughed, appreciatively.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes, you are perhaps thinking the Chief Priest sent me to you to be some sort of penance. That's correct, as far as it goes. But have you stopped to consider that Hughnon Ridcully also intended _you_ to be _my _penance?"

Johanna smiled. "I think I might be able to force myself to be repentent. Just give me time to eccept thet in this city, things ere different. Neither of us is et home here. Here, perheps, we cen think end ect differently."

* * *

**(1) **The British Army's standard rifle-range target shows something broadly similar, except that the attacker is holding a rifle.

**(2) **In** Witches Abroad,** Terry Pratchett introduces a "Spanish" speaking-and-themed region of the Discworld. This is not named. For want of a better, I've borrowed the Roundworld Spanish city of _**Toleda**_ to give it a name and a principal city.

**(3) **Bob Dylan fans may notice a few borrowings from the _**Blonde on Blonde**_ album of 1966. Sorry, couldn't resist it.

**(4)** Hughnon Ridcully's actual words had been, "Between you and me, Clement, you could recruit a full regiment from the men that woman's been through, and _still _have enough left over for a company of Territorials."

**(5)** Again, Clement is paraphrasing . Hughnon Ridcully actually said: "Watch your step around this one, lad. She's a murderous old bitch with a downer on men who don't meet her high expectations. Before she was caught, she clubbed, stabbed or generally just poisoned eighteen of 'em".

**(6)** Hughnon Ridcully: "For a peaceable man of God, laddie, you inhumed enough Boors last summer! I know Ionianism is meant to be a muscular religion, but kebbabbin' people on yer assegai, even the Boors, is pushin' it a bit! Now as it happens I've got _exactly_ the right penance for you. Young girl at the Assassins' Guild, she's a Boor, and you know what_ that_ means, going to be a teacher there by all accounts. Let somebody who thinks like that loose on black or brown-skinned pupils, and you know there are always a few at the School, and there'll be trouble. Downey asked me advice on this as he sees trouble brewin' with this one. So your penance, my lad, is to befriend this Boor girl and get her _out_ of the state of mind where she thinks the colour of a fella's skin is the colour of his soul. Big job, but I'm sure you'll do it!"

_Dedicated to all the_ fans out there who appear to love my interpretation of Alice Band and who asked me to be nice to her and let her have a fling. Fling duly flung, along with what will be an ongoing frustration.


	20. Jocasta and Alice prepare

_Another minor rewrite, this time to allow for the changes in Johanna over time and introduce another minor character who would have graduated in this run. _

Alice stood in the shadows at Checkpoint Twenty-Seven, listening to the nearby rush of the almost-water and stilling her mind and senses so as to be aware of all the other, subtler, occasional, noises that the larger sound was masking. She became aware of the scrabbling and occasional chirruping of the messenger rats in their cage; of the curiosity of a feral rat, a native of the sewer, wondering why a not unattractive female should be cooped up behind bars, and investigating; of the conversation between the rats, which boiled down to a haughty go-away-I-am-as-far-above-you-as-the-stone-sky-is-above-the-rushing-waters, punctuated by the male rat's _Dur? Why-we-not-mating,-prime-female?. (_Alice thought _I must be light-headed or suffering from sensory deprivation. _But she still tuned into the rats, anyway. It was something to do. ).

{Modifer indicating exasperation and annoyance}Because-you-are-_**keekee**_-from-the-place-where-humans-send-their-bodily-excrements,-and–this-female-is-superior-status-from-Clan-Who-Work-for-Vetinari. That-is-why!

_But-all-females-grey-in-the-dark-and-all-will-mate-readily-with-strong-male!_

**Return-when-you-have-cleaned-up-and-grown-brain! **

**A**lice chose to look in on her rats. A scraggly grey-brown feral male hissed at her and retreated from the cage, followed by a small stone, which deliberately missed. She smiled at the female in the cage, and tried to vocalise "{modifier indicating distaste and exasperation} Males,- huh?"

{modifier indicating amusement} Males-indeed,-mistress!, she almost heard from the rat, which looked up appraisingly at her. She checked they had sufficient access to food and water, and resumed her vigil.

Her first candidate approached at just after one in the morning.

"Sir? I am here!"

Alice stepped, shrouded, out of the shadows.

"Make that a "ma'am", if you please." she said, trying to convey the idea that getting the examiner's sex wrong was one big step towards failing. "Number?"

"Black- seven, ma'am"

She checked the sheaf of papers she'd been given just before setting off. It had all been finely calculated and computed so that randomly issued colours and numbers sent the candidate on a preset route, on which they would intersect with four named examiners. Therefore, among a dozen or so Candidate papers she'd be assessing, there had to be… oh yes. Black –Seven. She took it to the front of her clipboard.

"Name?"

"Jeremy Ampleforth-Winchester, ma'am"

It tallied: she ticked it off. _What comes first… oh yes. The symbol._

Alice held up the card.

"I haven't the vaguest idea, ma'am". A brief pause as Alice lifted her pen, and he added:-

"But rotated clockwise through ninety degrees, it's a Wizard's talisman advising any unwelcome visitors that they are now entering the Maximum Security Shelves of the Library, and the spell of Eightfold Stasis will be applied with maximum prejudice to anyone seeking to steal the books. The bananary fingerprint is not an official part of the design."

_Ah. A comedian. Right… s_he ticked off "_**sign**_" as completed, and went onto the three questions of the Viva.

"Under what precisely defined circumstances may an Assassin use lethal force without first securing payment?"

"Ma'am. Like any member of society, the Assassin has the civil and common law right to self-defence if attacked by common thieves or thugs, or if for whatever reason an individual seeks to do them violence. He …or she…may then take the appropriate means necessary to protect their person. Although we are expected to act responsibly and use the minimum degree of force to, say, incapacitate an attacker, sometimes use of lethal force becomes necessary."

"That's one. Name a second."

"If your native country is at war and you are called up to its armed forces. It's impractical to take out a contract on every soldier in the enemy army before the battle starts, and therefore the Assassin in those circumstances is awarded a dispensation, and may inhume _pro bono publico_…"

"And a third case?"

Ampleforth-Winchester looked stumped for a few moments and _errr'd. _Alice poised her pen to make a cross. Then it came out in a desperate rush:

"Under Lord Vetinari, if the Assassin's services were to be required in the service of legally constituted civil authority, it would be regarded as _pro bono publico_, or at the least subject to a very big discount.."

"Name an example of the third type." Alice said, mercilessly, having not forgiven the slip over the sign and the cocky way he'd pointed it out to her. She now placed his face:- Ampleforth-Winchester was one of those confident pupils who sauntered through life barely breaking a sweat, and effortlessly passing tests and exams without exerting himself unduly. _Well, you'll sweat now! _

"Ma'am, the exam only calls for three questions.."

"And that's your answer, is it? If you'd read the exam rules a little further, you'd have seen that the examiner, at his or _her_ discretion, may add a supplementary fourth!"

"Ma'am, an example of an assassin acting _pro bono publico_ in the service of the State. The Honourable Michael Carrington, of Tree Frog House, who at Lord Vetinari's discreet request recently annulled the former Lord de Worde following an attempted _coup d'état_. And who then circulated iconographs of the dead Lord to his co-conspirators, as a warning about any repetition."

"Good enough" said Alice. "Now your next checkpoint will be at the dome of Small Gods. _You_ need to figure out where to leave the Cloaca and start climbing upwards. Bit of a trek, I'm afraid. Off you go!"

Alice watched her first Candidate gratefully speed onwards into the gloom.

_One down, eleven to go. _

Jocasta Wiggs kicked her legs in frustration. _Only twenty past one! _She screamed inwardly: she wanted to get it over with, whatever the outcome. She had joined a motley group of later runners, for company and comradeship, in the Tump House Senior Common Room. They were preparing each other for the Run in a variety of ways: rote sessions from the Concordat, practicing Zen breathing, drinking coffee, and out in the ante-room…

Chanting, punctuated by rhythmic stamping and beating.

_Nkulunkthulu! Inkatha yeSizwe Kwa'Zulu! _

Jocasta allowed the translation to form in her mind. She'd done Howondalaandian Languages, a supplementary course offered by the school chaplain, Canon Clement N'Effabl (known to the pupils as "Black Mass") out of interest and a desire to do different.

_Great Sky God! We, the crown of the nation, give ourselves to you, in the {rite of passage} that lies before us tonight, and in the ongoing struggle for a Free Howondaland…_

"Damn' blacks." muttered Dorothea Selachii. "Lowering the tone of the school!"

"I bet you wouldn't _dare_ say that when they're in the same room!" Angharad Rhodri-Protheroe teased her. "And everyone's entitlled to pray to their Gods, after allll!"

"It must be serious." Jocasta mused. "Normally they only insist on the right to their religion because it _really_ gets up Miss Smith-Rhodes' nose, and they know it." She grinned, remembering a time when things had been _really_ inflammatory between pupils from White and Black Howondalaand, and the senior teachers had had to step in to prevent the loss of valuable fees and embarrassing diplomatic incidents boiling up under the school roof. It had been a learning curve for all, including Miss Smith-Rhodes, and bloodshed had only narrowly been averted.

But even Miss Smith-Rhodes had learnt in seven years, hadn't she? Black Mass, Canon Clement, had softened and chipped away at some of her ideas, for one thing. And she'd had lots of opportunity to see what the black pupils were capable of. Take Ruth N'Kweze, for instance: she'd made it to Head of House, and deservedly. According to whispers, Miss Smith-Rhodes had asked for her by name to help in a difficult job a year or two ago.**(1)**1 No, thought Jocasta, Ruth was another of the stellar ones, the elite, who would breeze through things tonight. Everyone tipped her to be one of the contenders for the Sword of Honour, the prize to the outstanding candidate of the night. _It's probably Ruth leading the singing in there,_ she thought. Tonight, both Boor and Kwa'Zulu pupils would run in the Finals: children sent to the Assassins' School by their countries to participate in a different kind of Arms Race.

_They want them to come back home as trained Assassins, _Jocasta thought. _They will, but what their families don't know is that each side has had to make its own peace with the other for seven years on neutral ground. Take Precious Jewel N'Khazi and Heidi Retief: seven years ago they'd have happily killed each other, age eleven, because one's a Boor and the other's a Kwa'Zulu. Look at them now: age eighteen, they've been living and working together for seven years. They might still try to kill each other if one was on the wrong side of the border, but it'd be with extreme reluctance. Give 'em another forty years to get to influential positions in their societies, and Gods know they train you for that in this school, and who knows? A final lasting peace treaty? I heard Vetinari forced it on the Guild –to take equal numbers of black and white Howondalaandians. One of his subtle long-term plans, I bet…_

The chanting and the ritual banging of assegai against buffalo-hide shield carried on.

_Siyo nqoba! Ukufa! (HAI!) Ukufu! (Hai!) Siyo nqoba!__**(2)**_

"Bloody noisy, though" Angarhad remarked, lifting her head from the Concordat.

"Very showy. Their God must demand a lot of song and dance." agreed Antonia Ludorum. "I could never get into _happy-clappy_ religions." Her nose crinkled with distaste. Still, at least we're running soon." She shot a look of pity over to Jocasta.

_Singabangane! Singibuthe! __**(3)**_

Jocasta sighed and tried to compose herself with Zen breathing. A buzzer rang.

A senior Assassin was heard shouting in the corridor:

"Candidates Black and White Forty-One to Forty- Four are to assemble in the yard! Two minutes!"

Jocasta, Black Ninety-One, sighed as the ritual "good luck!", last hugs and hand gestures were made around her and the common room emptied by a small but significant number of bodies. She saw people she had known ever since the age of eleven walking out through the door, and wondered if this were to be the last time she'd see them. Seven years of her life were ending. It felt overwhelming and heartbreaking…. She forced herself to focus on her breathing. The chanting ended next door. At least two of the three Zulu pupils were to run on this one, then. Everything went quiet. She found she missed the _We-defy-you, Death_ song of the Kwa'Zulu.

* * *

In the now-empty room next door, Death, marking time on what was usually a busy night for Him, picked up an assegai and a shield and weighed them experimentally. He had been the unseen fourth in the room, attracted by a song in His honour. I HEAR YOU. he said. ALL I CAN PROMISE IS IF YOU SEE ME TONIGHT, I'LL BOW TO YOU AS WARRIORS. IT'S EXPECTED, AFTER ALL. He checked a lifetimer that was hovering on the brink of running dry. He read the name and nodded. IT APPEARS I HAVE TO AWARD A FAIL GRADE. Then He stepped forward, and disappeared.

* * *

Alice examined six more Candidates, four male and two female, in the following hour and a half. After the initial novelty and newness had worn off, it became just another teaching duty: while she knew them all by name and face, and several had been in her classes at one time or another, none of the students were especially known to her and neither of the girls were from her own Tump House. Given the interminable bouts of waiting in between students, it was all starting to get rather boring, in fact: Alice was looking forward to a hot drink, bath, and bed as soon as she could manage.

"Ma'am? I am here!"

Alice had to stop herself from jumping. This one was good!

She turned, making it slow and casual, to find a hooded figure, who had stopped, respectfully, just outside effective stabbing distance.

_Careless, Alice! _she raged inside. She looked into the hood, seeing white teeth in a perfectly dark face.

"Your number?"

"Black, forty-four"

"Precious Jewel N'Khazi."

"That is me, madam."

"We shall proceed. This sign?"

"Thief-sign for "protected by dragons", ma'am. With modifiers to say how many dragons and how territorial they are".

They passed through the three questions. Alice then read the instruction:

"Proceed along the Cloaca to Checkpoint Twenty-Five…" Alice looked up at Precious, realized the implications, and her voice faltered.

"Is everything alright, ma'am?" Precious asked. Knowing that this student liked and respected her, and was asking out of genuine concern, Alice shook her head. "You will proceed to checkpoint Twenty-Five." Alice repeated, getting control of herself. "It's only a short distance away. "_And in between you've got an Emergency Drop. The tilting slab. Survive that and then you've got to confront the examiner at Checkpoint Twenty-Five. But the rules of the game say I can't warn you. Maybe that's fair about the Drop, you have to spot that for yourself, but it isn't fair to send you into a head-to-head with Johanna. Not with the _**particularly**_ poisoned student-teacher relationship you two created for yourselves. Far too late for repair, even though Johanna's mellowed over the years to an extent I'd never have thought possible when I first met her. it's simply that these two started off on the wrong foot and it never really got better, not in the way it did with Ruth N'Kweze, say. And even if it were Ruth, they're still from countries who are mortal enemies. It'd be the easiest thing in the world, with no witnesses, for there to be a swift inhumation in the dark. And it can go either way, if _**we**_ get over-confident and under-estimate some of the people we've been training up for seven years. Ye Gods, why can't you people leave your bloody war in Howondaland?_

Alice took a very deep breath, and said:

"I'm sorry, I never learnt to speak very much Zulu. If I were to say _**wees baie versigtig, (5) **_please understand I don't mean it as an insult."

Precious drew breath and paused, as the implication of the Wondalaans phrase sank in. "Miss Band, in seven years you have never offended me even once. I think I understand you perfectly. I thank you."

And she was off. Alice hoped the warning in Wondalaans had alerted the girl to what could not be said openly. And that she _would_ go very carefully. And that Johanna Smith-Rhodes would consider her duty as a Guild teacher to mark and assess fairly would outweigh her feelings as a Boor national who was about to confer Assassin status on one of her country's mortal enemies. _If I were Johanna, would I have the cold blood to inhume her? I know her. I think I know her. And the person she was seven years ago is not, in many significant ways, the person she is now. Or she would not think so highly of Ruth and other pupils. I would like to think they will both refrain, wit absolutely correct politeness._

Alice wondered if this were the sort of situation to use an emergency messenger rat, but what could she say?

_I believe the assessor at Station Twenty-Five may allow national sentiment to over-ride duty to the Guild…_

_There is a danger a Boor examiner might inhume a Kwa'Zulu candidate for reasons other than those to do with the exams…_

Alice stamped, frustratedly. She liked Johanna. They had a history together. They were friends. On one occasion it had gone a little way beyond friendship, although Alice suspected, with embarrassment, that never-repeated occasion had been down to too much champagne and the elation of passing their Final Run. It was just this damn stupid unpleasant nasty racism she'd been brought up with. While to her credit she'd lost most of it, the legacy of a bad beginning still persisted, and a long-lasting consequence was about to catch up with her.

Alice caught herself. What if her intervention were to get Johanna inhumed? _What if she was wrong? _Johanna had shown promising signs of change, growth, maturity, a different way of looking at the world. But it hadn't always been that way…

* * *

It had happened about three months into their teaching careers, when they were a lot younger and less experienced and were settling into their roles.

Alice, like the rest, had been getting used to the in-between-class commotion of a thousand pupils migrating between classes. For a few moments there would be a seething mass of pupils, mainly male but now dotted with groups of gymslips, dwindling within a minute or so to empty halls, stairs and corridors again. Any member of the teaching faculty caught in it had to duck for cover or be swept away.

On this morning, however, Alice, new and inexperienced as she was, picked up a different note in the noise and susurration. Young girls squealing with fear and alarm, and a note of… anger? Violence?

_Fight. And a playground fight in _this_ school is _not_ a trivial thing!_

Unceremoniously pushing through the throng and heaving aside even sixth-form boys who were bigger than she was, Alice ran to the sound of the noise, up the Raven House stairway. Pushing aside a couple of horrified girls, she stopped dead at what she saw. Lucinda Rust, her face white with fear and mottled red, was pinned to a doorway by Precious Jewel N'Khazi, who against every school rule was holding the _very_ sharp point of a war assegai to her throat.**(4)**

"_Yes, I live in a mud hut!" _she was hissing. "My _family _lives in a mud hut! The Paramount Chief _himself_ lives in a mud hut! _And your point is? Lucinda, I'm waiting! _Are you calling me some sort of _primitive_, some sort of _aborigine, _some sort of _ape_? What else is the _brick_ you build from but a kind of dried mud? Are you Rusts any superior? Daughter of a man who waxes his moustaches with pig fat? At least MY father the Paramount Chief brings most of _his_ soldiers back alive after a war!"

Alice noticed Lucinda's hands were groping as if for a hidden knife.

_Oh no, this won't do…._

Alice was stepping forward to intervene when Johanna Smith-Rhodes stepped forward from the next corridor. She barked a series of abrupt commands in a language Alice didn't recognize. Precious ululated a high-pitched war-cry.

"Oh yes, baas-woman! You tell me to let the white woman go! But am I a Hottentot or a Bantu for you to use _kitchen kaffir_ at me? Listen to me, Boor-lady! I am Kwa'Zulu! I am nobody's slave!"

Johanna's face reddened with anger and she reached for her right hip… only for Alice to take her wrist firmly and shake her head, ever so slightly.

"Not here, Johanna." she said, firmly. "Please?"

Joan Sanderson-Reeves had joined them. Alice breathed a sigh of relief at the approach of a far more experienced teacher.

I think" Joan said, steering Johanna gently away, "that if we all take a few moments to calm down, all this can be resolved bloodlessly. Miss Band, will you go and speak to Miss N'Khazi and Miss Rust? Ladies, both of you appear to trust Miss Band's good judgement. You may be sure she will be a fair arbiter of whatever dispute you've had. Now listen to her. Miss Smith-Rhodes, please come with me. Classroom 3B is free at the moment."

Alice took a deep breath. "Precious Jewel, please lower your weapon. Lucinda, do not even _think_ of bringing that concealed knife out into the open. Thank you. If we can resolve this here, I will try to persuade the Master that it need not trouble his office. I can't guarantee that, but I think it would benefit everyone if it ends here. Now both of you come with me".

Some things take little explaining. Lucinda Rust's racial abuse, which appeared to be ignored, or simply not noticed, by Miss Smith-Rhodes, had bubbled under for several weeks until Precious had exploded and threatened to wash her spearpoint in Lucinda's heart's blood.

"When it comes to doing routine chores in the dorm, Lucinda throws the broom at me and says why should she sweep the floor, when there's a kaffir in the room."

"I see." Alice mused, thinking _there's only one place on the Disc where black people are called kaffirs. But then, there are Boor _students _here too, not just first-years. It might not be coming from Johanna. Maybe she's just slow to notice. Damn, I'll talk to Black Mass about this. Our esteemed chaplain has a way of penetrating Johanna's dense skull. _

Alice heard out the story. Lucinda's stubborn refusal to talk was as good as a confession It appeared to be a Rust family trait, if caught in wrongdoing, to bluster and stare haughtily and emit an aura of perceived superiority, as if they were collectively above any court, any tribunal, any justice. Well, it wouldn't work _here_. . She took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"You're both in Raven House, aren't you?" _What a stupid, stupid, place to send a Black Howondalandian girl to! _She raged, inwardly.

"Precious, I'll talk to the right people and try to get you transferred to Tump, where I can keep an eye on you. I believe the relationship between you and your housemistress is non-existent and you'll thrive better in a different environment. I'm sorry it means starting again with a different set of people, but I will tolerate no racism and no bullying in MY House.

"Lucinda. I'll keep it brief. If you were one of my girls in my House, you would by now have accumulated so many demerits that your record would be in deficit until at least your third year. I do _not_ like the way you have behaved. We show respect to each other, miss Rust. We co-operate. We are equals. I realize these are foreign words to you, but as you proceed in this school, you will realize that the person you bully, browbeat and belittle today may well be the person with your life in their hands during, for instance, an edificeering lesson. Express common courtesy to people on the way up. Or you may well glimpse them, very very briefly, on the way _down. _Perhaps from a hundred feet up the side of the Bottle. Have I expressed myself clearly? As it stands, _you_ provoked this situation and I am awarding you the maximum five demerits.

"Miss N'Khazi.. Whatever the provocation, you drew a bladed weapon on a classmate. This is _strictly _against school rules. I'm very sorry, but even allowing for provocation, I have to award you a demerit. I also have to warn you that if Miss Smith-Rhodes chooses to bring up issues of disobedience and rudeness to a teacher, and I will try to persuade her not to, there may be further sanctions. Now I should walk you both to your next lesson. Your teacher will need to know why you're late."

"I nearly told her to_ voetsaak._" Precious murmured.

Alice tried hard to look stern. Inwardly she was laughing.

"I'll pretend I don't know what that means!" she said. "But had you used that phrase to Miss Smith-Rhodes, and I counsel you in all seriousness not to, then it would have taken _three _of us to drag her hand away from her whip!"

After that, and after Johanna had been summoned to a long private chat with Lady T'Malia, from which she came away looking chastened and thoughtful, the working relationship between the Boor teacher and her Kwa'Zulu pupils became one of icy, absolutely correct, formality on both sides. Over the years this had thawed, with some, into a mutual understanding, even a veiled respect, but not with Precious; the early damage had been done.

* * *

And now, seven years on, it was culminating….Alice decided that there was nothing she could do, the dice were cast, and settled down to await her next Candidate. Although she hoped to see both her friend and her valued pupil again come the morning.

* * *

**(1)** See my story _**Murder Most 'Orrible**_, where selected student Assassins are tasked with going undercover on assignments and Ruth tankes on one of the most hazardous.

**(2)** We shall be victorious or we shall die!

**(3) **We are friends! We are warriors!

**(4)** Kwa'Zulu pupils had been discouraged from their practice of carrying culturally specific weapons with them at all times. But in even-handedness, Boor pupils had had their whips confiscated, except for sanctioned weapons training.

(**5**) _**wees baie…**_Afrikaans/Vondalaans for "go very carefully" _**Voetsaak **_means... well, to an Afrikaaner it's fighting talk. Seriously so. And if it comes from a black person….


	21. Jocasta's Run

And now, seven years on, it was culminating….Alice decided that there was nothing she could do, the dice were cast, and settled down to await her next Candidate. Although she hoped to see both her friend and her valued pupil again come the morning. With a great effort, she cleared her mind again.

_Will this night never end? _She asked herself. Three more of her Candidates came and went.

* * *

The Senior Common Room in Tump House was now empty except for Jocasta. It was three o'clock. She looked out of the window, willing the ordeal to end. She could see from this high up the building that a crowd had gathered in Filigree Street, not yet permitted inside the Guild premises. She also knew that when the last group of Candidates started their Run, the gathering crowd of family and friends would be allowed into the Courtyard and into the Great Hall to either celebrate, or carry on with the agonizing wait. She heard the distant clatter and bustle as Guild servants, volunteers for the night shift, prepared hospitality for an influx of guests.

She wondered what provision was being made for relatives of those who Failed. They would in all probability be discreetly ushered elsewhere to grieve, while senior Assassins moved among them mumbling platitudes and offering the sincerest condolences on behalf of the Guild, whilst no doubt reminding them that every School contract had a built-in disclaimer against this event.

_You knew the risks when you signed up. Or rather when you signed your child to this particular school, seven long years ago. _

Finally she couldn't stand it any longer, and loafed down to the courtyard where she discreetly watched as numbers Eighty-Three to Eighty-Six were marshalled to their sending off points, four White and four Black.

Just Eighty-Seven to Ninety to go, in about ten minutes, and ten minutes after that , at approximately three-thirty, she would be in the very last group.

There was no drama, no fuss: as far as she could discern, the eight student Assassins were glad to go and get the long wait over with.

_I have to walk this lonesome Desert; I have to walk it on my own…. _For some reason, the old childhood hymn came back to her. Some religions said that the moment you died, you had to trek across a Desert, alone, to find what was on the other side. This appalled Jocasta, who preferred the pot-luck of reincarnation. At least you'd get family and friends again and start off from new.

Eighty-Seven to Ninety took their places. Lord Downey himself waited with a raised hand, consulting a stopwatch. And then they were off. And at last there were only four, from the one hundred and eighty plus who'd started the night.

"Our deepest apologies that you've had to wait for so long." Downey said to them. "But the luck of the draw, and all that… at least we can offer you a small privilege in compensation. As only four of you are running rather than a full eight, you each have a choice of two alternate routes. It has all been worked out so that both will be equally challenging, but it permits you a modicum of choice over your destiny. Miss Wiggs: left or right? Please select."

"Left,, Master." Jocasta found herself saying. Downey nodded, and ushered her to a full Assassin who courteously took her arm. "I will direct you to your Start point."

If Jocasta had known it, it was the same undercellar from which the invigilating teachers had set off some hours earlier. She was even following, at least for part of the route, in the footsteps of Alice and Johanna.

"I know I'm not supposed to say this," her escort said, diffidently, "but good luck. Keep your wits about you, and it won't be half the ordeal you think it is. Tomorrow, you'll look back on this and laugh!"

"Thank you" Jocasta had replied, genuinely cheered up. A distant whistle blew.

And she was off, following the whispered direction. Down into the Undercity, the dead bones of older Ankh-Morporks, stacked haphazardly one atop the next, where she had journeyed many times before with Miss Band on drainholing lessons and archaeological surveys. She reached her first checkpoint without incident. A couple of thousand years ago, this had been a public baths built by the Latatians in the interests of public cleanliness and good hygiene. This was something a dweller in modern Ankh-Morpork found difficult to believe – that there had been such a thing as public bathing facilities, that they were actually _free_ to all social classes and paid for out of general taxation, and, above all, that the remote ancestors of modern Morporkians actually _used _them. The Ankh had been cleaner in those days, too, Miss Band had said.

Jocasta looked around her. At the silted-up dead baths, the crusted mud and grime everywhere, and the massive wall carving, in cameo relief, of the Sol Invicta, the Unconquered Sun. It had long since lost its gilding, but still shone down, in a dirty neglected sort of way that to Jocasta seemed highly appropriate for the modern city. Elsewhere, the grime on the walls had been partially cleaned off to reveal frescos of hippopotami – Miss Band had asked the class to note how far back the association of the city with its totemic animal actually went. She shook her head back to the present. Where was the invigilator? She braced herself and called

"Sir. I am here!"

"Very good" said a jovial voice from right behind her left ear. She jumped.

Grune di Nivor.

"You're my last one tonight, so let's get cracking so we can be home soonest, hey?"

She relaxed. Jolly old Grune. One of the masters everybody liked and respected. But this didn't mean he'd be lenient. He'd just be _fair_.

She got through the sign and the three questions without a tremor – though if you asked her afterwards she would not have remembered – and the amicable fat old teacher grinned amiably.

"Right, Jocasta m'dear. Your next task is at Checkpoint Twenty-Six. That's in undercity level three, just above the Cloaca, in the old pumping house. Off you go, and so do I, to press the flesh back at the Guild!"

Jocasta found herself running on the roof of the Cloaca, where at some distant past, it might have run near to ground level and have been covered in earth and landscaped for concealment, leaving only access points for civil engineers. Any landscaping had since eroded away, leaving only the exposed stone of the roof and _watch it, Jocasta!_

As the main sewer sloped down towards the Ankh estuary – Jocasta thought it had been done deliberately, to allow the river's waters to drain into it and flush it out periodically – the stonework became slimier and her feet nearly slipped, towards a jagged gash where the roof had actually fallen in for twenty or thirty feet. She heard the roaring of distant waters, which she knew would be a hundred feet below her. _Fall through that hole and you're a sure Fail! _

She negociated the breach, alert for crumbling stone incapable of taking her weight, and very, very, carefully drainholed a way around it. _Was that my Emergency Drop, _she thought_? Or was it just one of them? I know they programme more than one into every route. It's the one you _don't_ see that gets you, usually._

But there it was, the Pumping House, thought to have been the control point of the old sewer system, long since stripped of its valuable machinery and metals.

She saw her next invigilator, sitting at his ease at the door, leafing through a book and…praying?

"Sir. I am here."

Canon Clement N'Fallibl, the school chaplain and Licenced Assassin, looked up and smiled at her. He put his breviary down.

"Be at ease, my child. Your number?"

"Black, ninety-one"

"Jocasta Wiggs. By grace of the God, my last one tonight. Shall we begin?"

Again, sign and questions.

_Black Mass, _she thought, gratefully_. Two decent teachers, one after the other. This luck can't last. _

"You now have a short run down to Checkpoint Twenty-Seven, which is down in the Cloaca. You may access it via these stairs here. And.."

She turned round to look.

"The blessing and good fortune of the God Io attend thee and keep thee safe this night, that we may undoubtedly see each other again in the morning! Remember the God helps those who help themselves, as I know _you_ assuredly _can_!"

"Amen!" Jocasta said, fervently. Good old Black Mass, finding a way to slip a word of human encouragement in! It might be against the rules for a teacher to actively encourage a pupil, but she couldn't remember anything anywhere about praying for somebody being a breach of exam rules.

Jocasta made her way, very carefully, down a scummy and slippery spiral stair, until she at last came out onto the service walkway above the roaring almost-waters of the Cloaca. She set out at a confident pace for Twenty-Seven, following the same path Alice had walked some hours earlier. _Well, it's not gone so badly so far…_

_____________________________________

Alice Band, waiting anxiously for her twelfth and last Candidate, heard a distant Dopplering cry of _**"Oh, nooooooo…."**_ tailing off with a splash and then nothing. She closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands as the silence lengthened. _She got caught out by the tilting slab, then…_

Finally, she heard a squelching and slopping in the distance, growing nearer and wetter as somebody approached.

"Identify yourself!" she called.

"Black, Ninety-One, ma'am".

Alice studied the dripping, woebegone, mud-caked apparition in front of her. She shook her head with equal parts disapproval and relief, and said, in defiance of approved examination form:.

"Jocasta Wiggs. You really _are_ a mucky puppy, aren't you?"

Anyone looking at Jocasta Wiggs would perhaps see an averagely pretty teenage girl, with shoulder-length brown-blonde hair tending to the curly. They might register a slightly eager-to-please air about her, and a slightly worried look indicating that at any given moment, she is half-expecting the world to stop her and tell her she's doing it wrong. Who, like Sybil Ramkin, is fated by life to be one of the cheerful optimistic ones, even in the face of the evidence. They might be right, but if they were to stop there and think that's _all_ there is to Jocasta, they'd be dead wrong.

When the tilting slab tilted and sent her falling into the almost-water of the Cloaca, Jocasta had the wit to take the deepest possible breath as she went in. The speed of her thought processes would also have surprised an observer who _only_ saw easy-going, eager-to-please, and slightly worried.

_Miss Band warned me about this… she got caught out here… stuck underwater with the mud halfway up her boots…if I go in feet-first I'll stick too…oh Hells Bells, there's no remedy for it, this is going to _hurt_ and it'll be messy…_

She twisted and flattened out in the air, so as to impact the liquid flat on her back as opposed to feet-first. She winced: hitting the dubious waters with her arms and legs extended in the starfish position certainly did hurt, but from twenty feet up it was just about survivable with bruises only. She trod water and tested arms and legs and things. Everything still worked. And it could have been worse, as Emergency Drops go. She laboriously and carefully climbed back up to walkway level, trying not to think of what the water she was soaked with had been carrying. She squelched towards Checkpoint Twenty-Seven and recognized the silhouette of the teacher there, which restored a little of her confidence and cheerfulness. _Three of the nice ones, one after the other. _.

__________________________________________

"Jocasta Wiggs. You really _are_ a mucky puppy, aren't you?"

She saw Miss Band shake her head, with that amused half-smile she'd known for the last seven years, the amused half-smile that had once sent her on a field mission to get close enough to Sam Vimes to deliver a killing blow, and landed her in the Ramkin dunnikin.

"Better get this over with, then. This sign is?"

Jocasta got through the spot tests quickly, and Miss Band smiled.

"Make your way down the Cloaca and you will see the way out is clearly signposted. Take the route towards Scoone Drive and you will come out in the garden of a private house where you will find your next – and I believe last – checkpoint." She paused. Then said simply "Jocasta" and squeezed her hand . They exchanged eye contact, all they could safely do.

"Thank you, miss" Jocasta said, and ran off, trying to ignore the cold and the soaked soiled clothing.

_Up there it's a summer night. I might dry out a bit better. I'll still stink, though. _

She followed the sewer, and like Emilia before her, noticed Harry King's boys had been here to trace and label the tributaries leading to various destinations in the richer part of the city.

And like Emilia, she came out in a garden, very carefully replacing the manhole cover and quickly leopard-crawling into the cover of a shrubbery. She used the cover and the shadow to get her bearings. Somewhere around here was her last checkpoint where she'd have to…_no, don't even think about that yet. _But where? She tuned into sounds around her. Marching feet. Studded sandals. _Watchmen._

She settled more deeply into cover as the feet stopped nearby. Very near. Less than a foot away from her head.

"All clear, sir. They did say the last of them were leaving the Guild at oh-three-thirty hours. It's oh-four-forty now. I doubt there'll be many more of them"

Somewhere beyond the speaker, a match flared into life. As the flarer inhaled and lit his cigar, Jocasta saw to her horror exactly _whose_ garden she'd landed in.

_And he's seen me! _Jocasta gibbered inside, as Sam Vimes stared directly at her.

"And you're absolutely sure there are no more ? That we've had them all?"

"All we're ever going to get, sir. There probably isn't an Assassin within a mile of here that we haven't caught and booked!" Fred Colon said, confidently.

Vimes still looked directly at her.

"Yes, we have had a good night, haven't we? A bumper crop of student Assassins. I'm really looking forward to the debrief with Downey tomorrow."

Vimes looked down at Jocasta again.

_How has he not seen me? And I'm within six inches of Fred Colon's feet afer he's been tramping the beat all night. I deserve Assassin status, just for keeping in cover with those two offences to public hygiene so close to my nostrils._

"So you're absolutely sure there are no more Assassins anywhere in the grounds?"

"Absolutely positive, sir!" Colon said, confidently.

"OK, Fred. Go and start standing people down. Two men in every three. Thank the Specials for turning up, and tell the regulars they can go and grab some sleep, but I'll still expect to see them in the debriefing session at the Yard at one. How's Lance-Constable Huxtable?"

"He'll mend, sir. But that vicious little bitch definitely intended to kill. She put three crossbow bolts into Reg."

"Typical Rust. Vicious and thick. Most people might cotton on that if you shoot somebody in the heart once with a crossbow and they keep on coming at you, they're Undead and any more shots are going to be wasted."

Vimes shook his head. Colon, dismissed, marched off, leaving a dwindling aroma of over-worked feet behind. Vimes stepped forward to where Colon had been standing, and took a long reflective drag of his cigar.

"If there _were_ to be an assassin nearby, and my most experienced Sergeant has just assured me there _isn't_, so I'm talking to myself, must be getting old. . It occurs to me that while Colon is standing the men down, a girl who's quick on her feet could dash through that hedge and turn sharp right onto the lawn, where she'll see the old summerhouse. There she'll find that vicious sociopathic man- hating old curmudgeon, Joan Sanderson-Reeves, who'll do whatever it is you people do to make an Assassin. Then she can just walk out with her pass certificate, but gods help her after that, if she ever enters this garden again without an invitation. Which, by the way, Lady Sybil may well extend by way of congratulations for passing. _Jocasta_. "

Vimes tossed the cigar butt away, and walked off, after a nod in Jocasta's direction.

_He knew! And he's helping me! _

She didn't stop to wonder, but just followed directions.

"Ma'am? I am here."

"Step forward. Identify yourself."

Miss Sanderson-Reeves, the Domestic Science and Elocution teacher, known to the pupils as "Mrs Mericet".It was thought she was the female counterpart of the veteran Poisons master, and the fact she taught Domestic Science only helped this impression.

Black, Ninety-One"

"Wiggs, Jocasta. And I'd be very keen, sometime in the future, to find out exactly how many of you knew to call me "ma'am", even before seeing me."

She laughed, briefly.

"Right, you're the last one. Let's get this over with then I can pack up and go back to the Guild. This sign?"

The last batch of question-and-answer passed quickly.

"Now step forward. Follow me. I'm your fourth checkpoint. You are fully aware what that means?"

"Yes, ma'am" Jocasta gulped. She followed "Mrs Mericet" into the summerhouse. In the dim lamplight, she saw a shape under a blanket.

"In your own time, Miss Wiggs".

Jocasta steadied herself, and reasoned that this as only symbolic, right? It's a dummy under there, it always has been…

And then it started writhing and moaning. Jocasta jumped and yelped, but steadied the crossbow, praying it still worked after her Drop.

"I'm sorry" she said, and fired. The body jumped and stopped and went quiet. Deathly quiet.

She stood, mouth open, contemplating the enormity of it. Then Miss Sandrson-Reeves tapped her on the shoulder and said "well done."

Jocasta took the pink slip without a word. The teacher grinned, mirthlessly, and pulled back the blanket.

"The Guild got Tuttle Scropes, the leather and clockwork man, to design and build these. Jolly clever, aren't they? Think yourself lucky, m'dear. In my graduation year they used live pigs. Ugggh".

Jocasta saw it was just a clever dummy. But it was dressed in the uniform of Commander of the Watch. She thought that was oddly appropriate.

Joan snorted. "For such a cultured man, Lord Downey can show a warped sense of humour, can't he? He _insisted _on this."

She stepped forward. "Well, Jocasta, it appears you've passed. Jolly well done."

She extended a hand. Jocasta stepped forward, unsure as to what to do.

"I warn you now, I'm not one of life's huggers. A simple handshake will suffice."

"Thank you, miss" They shook hands.

"In the circumstances, you can call me Joan. You're not a pupil any more. Right, give me ten minutes to clear up. Lady Ramkin has offered me one of her coaches to get safely back to the Guild. Apparently she thinks it's unsafe for a woman on her own to walk across town at this time of night, and she positively _insisted_."

They both paused, and Jocasta wondered how desperate a mugger would need to be.

You might as well tag on , although in the circumstances… do you mind awfully riding on the outside?"

Jocasta Wiggs, Licenced Assassin, said, through her crust of what she hoped was only mud and grime "Understood perfectly….Joan. And thank you."


	22. Glimpses into a darker world

**GC21 – Glimpses into a darker world **

_Author's note:-_ Be warned, this is a necessary chapter, but a darker one, that won't have too many laughs in it. It fills a necessary gap in Assassins' exam procedure...

* * *

Lord Downey had quietly excused himself, for the moment, from the milling crowd in the courtyard and Great Hall, of the returned newly-licenced Assassins and of those who loved them and were quietly expressing relief at their return. The first invigilators were now returning from their stations and were handing in their paperwork to Mr Wimvoe and the Guild clerks in the Examinations Office.

He took time to congratulate his teaching staff by name on a job well done, shook hands with several, and made his way over to where the thin and neurovoric Wimvoe was surreptitiously ingesting a measure of dried frog pills.

_He's getting too old for this and he's done this one time too many, _Downey thought, looking at the old man with compassion. _The dried frog pills are a good idea, and Ridcully assured me they work a treat for his Bursar so they should keep mine sane, but they can only go so far. And this particular Duty is one of those things that can drive a man Bursar over the years, being one of a handful who know this particular family secret. At least the new blood we started off in the Mature Students Class is getting the hang of the job now. In a year or two, we can give Wimvoe the retirement the poor chap deserves, and start with a newer, younger, Assassin-Accountant. _

"The first Failure to Attend forms, Master." Wimvoe said in a neutral voice, passing them over. Downey took them with a word of thanks.

_The approximate whereabouts of five Candidates who disappeared during the Exam and never made it to their next checkpoint. _

"And in the spirit of the New Arrangement, several reports forwarded to us from the City Watch."

_Two removed to the Watch mortuary and awaiting collection by the Guild. Identified as the Hon. Gerald Martlesham-Woodbridge. He was….. Viper House. Which makes him one of Grune di Nivor's. And…oh dear… Lady Susan Venturi. From a cadet branch of the family, nonetheless, but still a Venturi. She was… Black Widow House. One of Emmanuelle's, then. Cause of death in both instances, traumatic injury from falling. Failed on the Emergency Drop, I see. I note that Sergerant Littlebottom and the Watch Igor have both concluded in very large obvious letters MISADVENTURE. NO SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. __One of Vimes' courtesy details. Damn him._

Downey shook his head.

_And one removed under Watch guard to the Lady Sybil Free Hospital, with broken bones sustained by falling from a height. The Watch guard at the bedside is no doubt another courtesy. _

"I have cross-referenced Watch reports and invigilator reports as I receive them, so that we can begin to account for the Fails. It saves the Housekeeping Squads having to go to two places to tidy up the same Fail." Wimvoe said, in a flat dead voice.

Downey nodded his thanks. He gestured to two black-clad senior assassins. Some Duties should only be undertaken by the Master of the Guild and very senior guild members. Essential housekeeping in the aftermath of a Final Exam was one of them.

"Let's go, gentlemen" he said, softly. "Mr Wimvoe, we'll be at the Old Pumping House in the Undercity in about an hour. Please have a messenger send the next batch of reports to me there".

They left without a word, but an unspoken agreement was _let's have this done with as swiftly as possible. _

* * *

Lady Susan Venturi, niece of the current Lord Charles Venturi, sat up and tried to rub various parts of her that had really been aching not so long before. She had hazy recollections of the recent past. Something about the plank bridge across Wixon Alley. A little voice had said "_whoa, check this first_", but she'd over-ridden it, knowing they wouldn't put the Emergency Drop so near to the start of her run. Then the half-rotten planks had creaked and given way and she'd been falling, shrieking rage and frustration until…

"I know you" she said. "You're the housekeeping squad. The broom wagon. The one they send out to clear up people who fail …their… Finals…. Oh."

Her voice tailed off. The tall figure dressed all in black let his hood fall back.

YES. YOU COULD CALL ME A HOUSEKEEPER. and swung his scythe.

Lady Susan stood up, unseen by the two Watchmen who'd been alerted to the alley by the sound of the falling plank bridge.

_May the peace and mercy of Om be upon her…._

_That's all very well, Washpot, but you know our briefing. We find any dead Assassins in the street tonight, we get the poor sods back to the Yard and in the mortuary before the vultures have stripped them… oh Gods, she's really young, poor kid…_

_As Om commands, we must bend ourselves to the Seventh Corporeal Work of Mercy… (_**1)**

_Just do decently by the dead, Washpot. Dignity and kindness. Poor bloody kid. _

So what happens now?" she asked, her non-corporeal body fading as the Watchmen gently bore her physical remains away.

IT'S UP TO YOU. SUSAN. IT ALWAYS WAS.

* * *

Downey and the Housekeeping Squad sped through the middle-night streets of Ankh-Morpork in the unmarked black coach known as the Broom Wagon (**2)**. They found the first of what they sought in a mess of dustbins and scattered waste in a dark alley just off the Shades. While most night-dwellers had been put off moving on this night by an awareness the Assassins would be ought in force, just enough unlicenced thieves were stirring to, for instance, try to surround a student Assassin who had been unlucky in his Finals, with the intention of despoiling his clothing and weaponry.

Downey counted five dead thieves, sprawled out at varying distances from a dying student assassin who had nevertheless defended his honour as best he could.

"Sir? I am here!" the dying student breathed, recognizing Downey.

"Let's check you out, old chap." Downey said, exploring the broken body gently. "No sensation at all in your legs?" _Well, there wouldn't be. But still capable of fighting a last stand with pistol crossbow and blowpipe. _Downey weighed up the possibility of survival – he estimated at least two hours had elapsed since the Hon Martin Gower-Lacey had fallen, so shock and cold and internal bleeding, in addition to the broken back, made it less likely. And he'd be paraplegic, chair-bound, maybe even bedridden… Downey made a decision. From his inside pocket he produced a pink slip. Five Thieves: he deserved this.

"Thank you, sir!" Martin Gower-Lacy, Licenced Assassin (posthumous) breathed, bubbling blood.

Downey took out the special flask.

"Drink this, old chap. It'll make things better."

He waited until all signs of life had ceased, and then they gently placed the body in the back of the broom wagon. They left the other bodies where they had fallen, clearly inhumed by Assassins, as a wordless warning to other jackals.

_One down. However many are to come? _Downey exhaled.

* * *

The One who knew exactly how many more were to come bent down to one who had drowned in the Cloaca, a miserable, lonely, passing.

TIMOTHY WALSHAM-RUNTON?

"I should never have worn boots with laces, should I? Miss Band warned me about that."

MISS BAND IS A VERY CAPABLE TEACHER. IN SOME RESPECTS SHE RATHER PUTS ME IN MIND OF MY GRAND-DAUGHTER.

"It was the best seven years of my life" the spirit of Timothy Walsham-Runton mused. "No regrets."

HOLD THAT THOUGHT.

The scythe gently swung.

"_I just wish there could have been more of it…."_

* * *

And Lucinda Rust, thought of as a thoroughly bitter, vicious, vindictive girl mired in arrogance, over-confidence and a mistaken idea of her own innate superiority, hangs in a limbo state where she is not at the moment capable of contemplating issues of life and death, Success and Failure. Fortunately for her, as Downey and his hand-picked associates travel around the city administering the ancient rite of the Misericordia where they can, she is not in a place where they can reach her with the time-honoured and somewhat twisted guild concept of what is right and merciful. Which is, of course, not to say she is in _sympathetic_ hands. Nobody who has ever had cause to deal with a Rust girl for longer than five minutes is inclined to the emotion of sympathy.

* * *

**(1) ** Of course, in the Roman Catholic Church, the seventh corporeal work of mercy is that of burying the dead.

**(2) ** _La voiture-balai. _The Broom Wagon, is the last vehicle in the Tour de France procession, collecting those cyclists who are too exhausted or finished or just disheartened to cycle any more.


	23. To The End of the Night

**GC22 – Rejoicing and thanks**

After dealing with Jocasta Wiggs, Alice Band methodically gathered her paperwork and messenger rats together, and took the quickest possible route back to the Guild. She made sure to pass Checkpoint Twenty-Five on the way. There was no sign of Johanna, but neither was there any sign of a fight or a struggle. She fervently hoped Johanna would be back at the Guild by now. And Precious, who was after all a Tump House girl _and_ a relative of an important foreign ambassador. And of the head of State. And of the Guild Chaplain. _It's all great big happy families with the Kwa'Zulu, _she thought. _The Paramount Chief at the last count had twenty-three wives and, ooh, a hundred and forty-five children? And they all get Government posts when they're old enough, even if it's only Ceremonial Sweeper-Up of the Royal Buffalo Shit. That one must be a spectacularly dense child…_

She re-emerged in the cellar from where they'd all started off, what felt like a lifetime ago. In the far distance, she could hear the sound of laughter, lots of people, occasional cheers, and pent-up anxiety spending itself as relief. She knew she ought to be up there talking to her former pupils – her first set of graduate pupils – and shaking hands with families and friends, but a wave of tiredness swept over her. She slumped against a wall, and realized she wasn't alone in there.

Bill Bradlofrudd, another of the Mature Students class of eight years previously, was also slumped against a far wall, looking equally tired, smoking a cigarette.

"Alice." he said, by way of acknowledgement.

"Bill." she replied, and declined the offer of a smoke. He grinned, wanly.

"I know I've got to go up there. See how many of my lads failed to return. Just can't face it yet."

"Likewise". she agreed.

"I passed one of yours, by the way. Emilia Mountjoy-Standish. Outstanding Candidate. "

Alice smiled. One home run, twenty-nine to go.

"When I started out in teaching I never thought I'd end up here. Did you?"

Alice laughed. "I never thought I'd end up teaching! But it's always puzzled me. You know my story. What did _you_ do to end up here?"

"I started out in teaching at Hugglestones. Out on the moors. A long way out in the country. You must know it? Games and swordsmanship. I liked what I was doing. But the more I learnt about the school, the more sinister it got. Professor handhold, the Headmaster, made the mistake of recruiting his deputy Head from _this_ school." 1 (3)

"Oh dear" Alice said. "Ambitious, was he?"

"And clever" Bill confirmed. "Doctor Garrotte made sure I found out about things that were going on. About the reason why they founded the school way out in the wilds, where nobody was sure if Quirmian law or Ankh-Morpork law governed. Which from the point of view of the school trustees, made taxation just a theoretical liability. As well as other laws. I just didn't realize I was being manipulated into a confrontation with Handhold. Not just the tax evasion, but his particular affection for the _prettier _fourth-form boys. As a PE teacher, you have to run the boys through the showers after Games, and you get to see where somebody hasn't just been laying on _six_ of the best. More like twenty-four or thirty-six. That isn't discipline, that's brutal assault. Or worse." He added, darkly.

"I was going to go to one of the old boys with a file of what I'd found out. William de Worde at the Times". Bill paused, and shook his head.

"Then I made the big mistake. Garrotte found the incriminating evidence and said he'd handle things. Never saw it again. The bastard suggested I have it out with Handhold. And I did, up in his study. It got… heated. He fell out of the window. No, that's not right. _I threw_ him out of his office window. From eighty feet up. Then Garrote came in, forged a suicide note, and said he'd square things. Well, the school trustees were relieved, as there'd been talk Handhold was screwing the fees as well as particularly pretty boys. Embezzlement as well as bad publicity. They accepted it was suicide, and the new Headmaster, Doctor Garrotte, got me a big pay rise. But what I didn't know was that the bastard was covering his tracks. He'd also told the Assassins' Guild I'd accepted a substantial pay rise from the trustees in return for faking the Headmaster's suicide. That is, I'd accepted a fee to inhume him. The next thing I knew, there were two Assassins telling me to pack an overnight bag, as I had an appointment to see the Master of the Guild. The rest of my things would be sent on. They hustled me to a black coach down in the yard, I ended up here, Downey read me a fulsome reference from Garrotte, and the rest you know. I never went back to Hugglestones."

Alice nodded. She'd heard things whispered about Hugglestones, too. It sounded like the male equivalent of QCYL.

"I tell you, Alice, when I've got the experience, I'm going after Garrotte."

"Good luck" she said, looking at his steely-set face. She didn't doubt it. For want of something to say, she asked

"Remember our Final Exam?"

"How can I forget!"

Whgen it had finally happened, Alice had found the Final Run something of an anticlimax. She'd done so much edificeering and drainholing around Ankh-Morpork during the previous year that most of the standard routes were like a run in the park: she'd even evolved a set of strategies for what to do in case any familiar crossing or roof-jump suddenly became an Emergency Drop.

At a peak of physical fitness, being a natural-born edificeer, and having absorbed more than enough of the rest of the curriculum to satisfy her examiners, Alice had sailed through her test. Well, there'd only been one examiner, really, in the old-fashioned Guild manner. She'd drawn Lady T'Malia, and had been quietly vexed and consternated by the way T'Malia managed to be at the next checkpoint long before Alice reached it. _She must be pushing sixty, _Alice raged_. How does she do it? And she's not exactly dressed for edificeering…_

"I'll leave you now, my dear" T'Malia had said at the last checkpoint, "as what happens next isn't really to my taste. You will make your way by all speed to the Shambles and to Gerhardt Sock's slaughter-yard. Your final test happens there. Off you go!"

Alice had arrived to be directed into a shed stinking of blood and death, where the Compte de Yoyo and Mr Mericet were waiting for her.

De Yoyo indicated a shape, vaguely that of a fat human, under a blanket.

"In your own time, miss Band."

Alice took a deep breath, thinking _a dummy is probably too much to hope for, _and wondered whether to use her sword or a pistol crossbow. She decided on the sword: if she had to kill it would be up close and personal, or she'd never know the value of what she was taking away.

_Twenty thousand dollars, probably. But it goes to the Orphans and Widows Fund. That's traditional._

She stepped forward, drawing her sword. Then the thing under the blanket set up a high-pitched almost human screaming that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Enough of the blanket dislodged for her to look into the eyes of a terrified pig.

Cold anger surged through her. She remembered what her lover Mercedes de Toleda had told her about the _corrida. _Alice decided to make a spectacle of it. She'd make it stylish, alright, but without this poor creature needing to suffer any more.

Placing one foot behind the other, she reversed the sword, taking it not by the hand-grip but by the cross-guards. She took aim and plunged it into the animal's neck with all her force, splitting spine, muscle and blood vessels and killing it instantly. Then she withdrew the sword, ignoring the spurt of blood coming from behind it, brandished it at the two senior Assassins, bowed, and said, loudly, "Olé!"

She then turned her back on them to clean the blade on the blanket before resheathing it, surreptitiously checking the pig was dead.

_See the great señorita Band, the incomparible cochoneadora!_

De Yoyo and Mericet looked at each other. Then de Yoyo extended to her the all-important pink slip.

"It appears that you have passed, miss Band". he said. "But then I never had the slightest doubt about you at any time!".

"A bit flashy, one feels" Mericet sniffed. "I cannot discuss the examination with you, Miss Band. But I do disapprove of these flashy foreign methods. Please leave by the far door."

As Alice left, she heard "A bit harsh, mr Mericet. Have you never been to Toledo and seen the bullfight? Such grace and style!"

As she left, two of Sock's stockmen, acting on a cue, entered to retrieve the carcass and replace it with a new one. They treated her with respect and turned fearful eyes on her.

"Ellice. Ellice, Ellice, Ellice, Ellice!" Johanna Smith-Rhodes, her face a mass of tears, throwing herself into Alice's arms. Alice, who needed a bit of comforting herself by then, wrapped her arms around her.

"Thet was _horrible_!"

"_Quite_ tasteless." Joan Sanderson-Reeves agreed. "But it seems we've all passed. We're just waiting for Emmanuelle now, then perhaps we can go for a bite of supper somewhere"

More of the mature class joined them in the waiting area. They knew by sound when a new arrival was imminent: a pig would scream loudly and be silent. Bill Bradlofudd joined them, looking pale and shocked, his usual ruddy outdoor face ghostly pale.

"It could have been _lambs_, people. It could have been worse. Imagine the silence of the lambs, hmmm? Ah, Emmanuelle. We've been waiting for you!"

"Roast lamb _à la grecque_, I think. With fava beans and a Brindisian red!" Emmanuelle said, trying to clean blood off her face. "But I believe I am off pork. Possibly for life."

In the end, twenty-one of the mature students passed out as Assassins. Nearly a third of their number had died during training or failed Finals. But there, then, and on that night, Alice Band was alive. That was enough. And poor old uncle Hughnon waiting for her at the Guild gates, along with Scrote Jones, Mrs Whitlow and the Howondalaandian Ambassador… and had a troll laughed out there in the dark somewhere?

They had laughed and hugged with friends who were delighted to see them alive, and Scrote had discreetly passed a package to Emmanuelle.

Not so discreetly that Joan didn't notice.

"Look, I am a Gambler's Guild member!" the Quirmian girl had protested. "So I have the little side bet, yes?"

"And you win thousands of dollars on, let me see, _the old lady confounding everyone's expectations and surviving?_ Well, you're paying _everyone_'s bill tonight, m'dear!"

And Emmanuelle did, without complaint.

* * *

Alice smiled at the memory.

"Let's go upstairs, shall we, Mr Bradlofrudd?" And the two teachers sought the light of day and the last few tasks that needed to be done. They stopped at the Examinations Office and surrendered their paperwork and messenger rats Then stepped into the milling throng outside. _{to be continued!}_

* * *

1 See short story _**Choosing a School. **_


	24. In the morning mainly tears of relief

_Another rewrite, clearing up a dangling loose end concerning Johanna - written in accordance with the person she became after seven years, not the one she started out as. Also a cameo from Davinia Bellamy, who while added to the unfolding story later, needed to be here too, as she was a part of the team by then. _

Alice, reflective, remembered something else that needed to be done before the morning was over, and stopped at the back door of the Guild kitchen.

"I know you're really busy," she said, to a tousled young chef. "But could you oblige me?" He nodded, and was back a few moments later with a greaseproof bag inside which something wobbled. Alice smiled her thanks, and tipped him with a couple of dollars.

"Much obliged, ma'am!" the chef said, smiling. Alice transferred the bag, very carefully, to a leather pouch which she secreted inside her cloak. _For later, _she told herself.

Then she went forward to the milling crowd in the yard. For a while she wasn't noticed, which suited her, as she could take in the throng and recognise faces and people. There was Sir Richard Venturi and his wife… oh no, the body language told the story, of parents running out of hope long after the expected time of return of… Lady Susan…. but doggedly holding on there. Susan Venturi. Alice remembered her as somewhat headstrong, somewhat over-confident, somewhat lax in her preparation. Had she been in Tump, Alice would have cured that by sending her on the Vimes run as often as it took. But it looked as if Susan had failed…. Emmanuelle should by rights be dealing with that. _But then again, how many grieving parents will there be in the Tump House family this morning? _

Lord Ronald Rust and his wife. He, the ramrod-straight waxed-mustachioed career Army officer, the living walking examplar of the Stiff Upper Lip and of Taking It On The Chin. (which she heard Sam Vimes inflicted at every possible opportunity). Lady Rust, a trembling mass of nervous tics and suppressed insanity. _She's been married to Ronnie for thirty years, _Alice reminded herself._ That must be Hell on earth. _She too had the look of suppressed panic and barely-concealed hysteria about an overdue daughter. _Lucinda, _Alice realised. _Lucinda Rust must be overdue. But she's one of Johanna's. _

Alice wrapped herself in her cloak and moved her eyes on. _Oh yes…. The Union of Rimwards Howondalaand's ambassador, Pieter van der Graaf, and his wife. Trying to make safe diplomatic small talk with the Kwa'Zulu Ambassador, Prince Canaan Banana N'Vectif. And three of his wives. Who I'm glad to see are dressed for the city. _Alice recalled, with a smile, the way Kwa'Zulu women had dressed, or rather not dressed, when they first arrived in Ankh-Morpork, and very careful diplomatic offers had to be made re. local sensibilities, and the need to cover up your top half. It had been the redoubtable Lady Sybil Ramkin who had suggested to the ambassador that perhaps his ladies needed assistance in dressing suitably for the colder Hubwards climate, and could benefit from a shopping trip, perhaps? Lady Ramkin had mentioned that her grandfather had been treated with the _utmost_ politeness and courtesy and hospitality while in Howondalaand, and as his descendent, it was _her positive duty_ to return the hospitality and see your ladies are kitted out with the full complement of clothing suitable for this city. Dresses for day, ballgowns for official receptions, informal and formal clothing of all sorts… "_do_ leave it to me, mr Ambassador!"

_And on the fringe of the Howondalaand groups, Johanna Smith-Rhodes and the chaplain, Clement N'Fallibl!_

Alice looked further. _Oh, joy! There's Precious! And gods, what's happening here… they're actually mingling? And hugging? And celebrating together? Precious Jewel N'Khazi, Heidi Retief…. Hans Retief? Ruth N'Kweze, Joshua N'Kouth? All of them dancing a wild spontaneous wardance, for want of a better description? Hans Retief banging an assegai on a shield while Joshua N'Kouth plays with a Boor sjamboek whip? Their elders are letting them, or at least pretending not to notice? And… yes, that's Otto Chriek moving in with the iconograph. What an iconograph for the Times! _

"…and vun of Miss Retief and Miss N'Khazi, close in, ladies, big hug!" **(**_**Whoomph! )**_

_Just wait until the overseas editions get to Pratoria and Piemburg..._

Alice looked onwards. Commander Vimes of the Watch, looking out of place in the throng, finishing a cigar and stomping down on the stub. Alice watched him walk over towards Lord Rust: she read his body language and for once, saw something sympathetic, even diffident, there. He was steeling himself to say something to Rust. Alice moved closer.

"May I speak to you, Lord Rust? Privately?"

Rust turned a cold fish-eye on the chief of police.

"There's no place for _you_ here, Vimes." he said, deliberately. "In fact, how dare you intrude. This is a time and place for families of Guild pupils. And while I concede _your_ son might make a useful Scholarship pupil and a tolerable fag to his social betters, it'll be a good ten years before he's enrolled here! _You have no place here!_" Rust hissed.

Alice could see Vimes patiently repressing his anger.

"What I have to say is important. It might relieve Lady Rust of some of her anxiety…"

"And now you presume to bring my lady wife into it! Have you no shame, Vimes? _We are waiting for news of our daughter!_ "

"In fact, sir... my lord… Ronald…if you would just _listen!_ This is for your good!"

Rust turned his back on Vimes, who took a deep breath.

So be it then. But let the record say I tried." Vimes about- turned and nearly walked into Alice.

"Miss Band" he said, touching his helmet to her. "Were you by any chance Lucinda Rust's house teacher?"

"No" she said "But you can tell me. I'll see miss Smith-Rhodes is made aware." Alice paused. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"Not for want of trying" Vimes said, mirthlessly. "No miss. She's alive. Maybe her father might prefer her dead, though. Another glorious failure in the Rust family tradition. . What happened last night was this…."

* * *

Lucinda Rust awoke in a room that was pitching wildly from side to side. It reeked of old fish. She tried to move her legs. They were shackled to the wooden floor. Her wrists were similarly manacled, although in a way that allowed her comparative freedom of movement.

As the drug wore out of her system, she tried to remember. Those disgusting lower-class Watchmen who'd tried to impede her, HER, Lucinda Rust, on her Final Exam. Their insulting calls on her to surrender. She'd replied with crossbow shots and winged one of them, good. Then they sent that stinking disgusting Zombie in. She hadn't realised it was a Zombie and had filled his chest with bolts, but he'd kept on coming. Then that damn troll or golem or whatever had sneaked up from behind and picked her up bodily, and Vimes had shouted at her, the nerve of the common thief-taker, and she'd been sedated, drugged…

She saw the letter pinned to her tunic front. Very well. She'd read it. Then the moment she was free she'd demand somebody contact Daddy. Then they'd pay.

Lucinda saw the letter bore three seals. One with the Guild crest, one with a plain "V", sans-serif, and one with a dragon motif she didn't recognise. She broke them and opened it. It had the Guild crest at the top of the page and was suitably embossed and watermarked..

_Lucinda Rust. _

The letter had a distinct fill-in-the-blanks to-whom-it-may-concern feeling.

_When you come to read this letter, you will be a long way away from Ankh-Morpork. You are currently aboard a ship whose captain has been paid to look after you and treat you fairly and decently until he puts you ashore. You will not know the location where you make land. Your working equipment will be returned to you as will a modest purse sufficient for your immediate needs. _

Lucinda patted herself. She had been stripped of all knives, blowpipes, poisons, lockpicks! The sheer effrontery!

_You do not at the moment realise how lucky you are. By consultation with selected members of the City Council, the Guild has been prevailed upon to trial an alternative method of dealing with Candidates who, while still alive at the end of the Test, merit a Fail grade. You are to embark on an extended Escape, Evasion and Orientation exercise where your task is to make it back alive to Ankh-Morpork, using all those skills you have hopefully learnt at the Guild School in the last seven years. If you can report to Filigree Street and to your House Mistress Miss Smith-Rhodes within a year of the date of this letter, successful completion of the exercise will be taken as practical evidence of your fitness to be a licenced Assassin. You will then be allowed to repeat the Viva and the concluding stage of the Test. Charges relating to attempted murder of two members of the City Watch will also be set aside should you succeed._

_Be advised. There will be __no__, absolutely __no__, third chance offered. _

_You have a courtesy copy of the Concordat to re-read on the voyage. We counsel you to read it thoroughly._

_Signed for the Guild: Lord D. Downey._

_Signed for the City: Havelock Vetinari, Patrician. _

_Witnessed: Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh. _

Lucinda felt hot fiery tears on her face. Uniquely for a Rust, she cried in self-pity. The ship rocked and swayed on….

* * *

Vimes concluded "So you see, Alice, that's what I wanted to tell Ronnie. If only to console Lady Rust. I mean, I'm a father myself, and Sybil keeps hinting that it _has_ to be this school, as Ramkin boys have _always _gone here…. Well, I can see how it must feel. I don't want to be standing here in seventeen years' time with a great big ache in my gut over Young Sam."

"But he didn't want to listen" sighed Alice. "Look, I'll talk to Johanna."

Their attention was suddenly absorbed by a commotion. Joan Sanderson-Reeves, who had been walking over to greet Alice, stopped and her head also tilted in the direction of the Rusts.

"_Did you really say that?" _Lady Rust suddenly screamed, her self-control crumbling. Her husband looked at her with mild surprise.

"Yes, my dear. All I said was, at least we have two other daughters at this school. _One_ of them might succeed where the eldest, sadly, failed. Learn from her big sister's mistakes, what?"

Lady Rust threw back her head and screamed, the long, long, inchoate primal scream of thirty years' loveless marriage, the scream of loss of a mother at the death of a daughter, the pain of a parent who has outlived a child. With tears pouring from her eyes, she balled her fist, screamed again, and punched out.

"_You heartless, cruel, callous, bastard!"_

As Ronnie Rust measured six feet of cobblestones, his wife stumbled off, helplessly crying.

"I could have spared them that!" groaned Vimes. Joan Sanderson-Reeves said "If I heard you correctly, Commander, Lucinda's still alive?"

"Yes. You heard it all?"

"I'll go after her. She isn't safe out there. Tell her." Joan said, racing off.

"Joan!" Alice called.

"Yes, dear?"

"Offer her a contract!"

"I'll offer her a bloody big discount! Ronnie, I would do for the pure _satisfaction _of it! "

Vimes laughed, and watched as Rust was carried off to the Guild infirmary by two big porters.

* * *

And another episode was closing, over there in the crowded yard.

Precious Jewel N'Khazi walked steadily over to Johanna Smith-Rhodes, stopped within several paces of her, and looked her firmly in the eye. Johanna stared levelly back. Alice wondered if there was going to be some sort of confrontation, out here in public where everyone could see it. Others were wondering too; Davinia Bellamy (who had somehow drawn the Apothecary Gardens as her checkpoint last night, and who had challenged several Candidates with supplementary questions such as _"name this plant and two of its medicinal uses!")_ was also drawing closer. As were other Assassin-teachers. Ruth N'Kweze and Canon Clement had altered position slightly and were looking alert and ready to move.

Precious raised her assegai. Johanna did not move, but her hand was resting on her whip-handle in the manner of a fast-draw duellist. Alice had seen how as she could move. This was _serious_…

And then Precious was lifting the assegai in the air and singing something in Kwa'Zulu. Alice saw Clement and Ruth visibly relax.

Then Precious saluted with her clenched fist, inclined her head slightly, and reversed the spear so its shaft was towards Johanna.

Who nodded, responded with a few curt words of Zulu, and took the shaft in her right hand. Then she lifted her whip from her belt and offered the handle towards Precious, who took it. She also returned the slight bow and smiled slightly. Then each took back her weapon and they turned away. Everyone watching visibly relaxed, and the Zulu contingent were smiling broadly.

Nothing more was said and there was no more contact between Precious and Johanna.

"What was that all about?" Alice asked Canon Clement later. He smiled.

"My half-sister did the correct and polite thing." he explained. "When a warrior passes his final rite of passage and becomes a full member of the adult impi, he is expected to thank the older warrior who has trained and mentored him. He ritually offers his spear to the older, with words of thanks and an apology for any occasions on which he has given offence. He then offers his services to defend and fight for his mentor should they be needed. The mentor is then expected to accept the offer of service and to reciprocate by offering his - or in this case her - own personal weapon in support of the younger, should it be called for. It was fitting and right for Precious to so acknowledge Miss Smith-Rhodes as she enters the particular adult impi of which we are all members. She is a Howondalandian warrior too, after all. And so Precious enters her adult life with no lingering enmity. You do not speak Zulu, miss Band? A shame. Or you would have heard Miss Smith-Rhodes acknowledge a worthy pupil and apologise for the way one Boor treated one Zulu. I would call that a small step forward!"

"Maybe not so small…" Alice mused. "But if they meet again in Howondaland, they would still fight?"

"Oh, certainly!" said Clement, laughing. "Sometimes there has been civil war or disagreement between clans, and impis have fought each other, with friends on both sides. But on a battlefield they would, I think, courteously disregard each other unless there were no other alternative. Both are also Assassins, after all. _Larger_ miracles, miss Band, take a little longer!"

Davinia Bellamy smiled.

"I'm just so relieved I didn't have to intervene there." she said. "It really wouldn't have looked good if a teacher and a graduate were to have had a fight in front of relatives and the Times."

"How could you have intervened, Doctor?" Clement asked, politely. "I know how fast a whip and an assegai can move in a fight. You were, forgive me, some yards away. Although I did suspect you were assembling a blowpipe."

"I had a charge ready to shoot through the widest bore." Davinia said, self-effacingly. "It would not have travelled far, but it would have spread wide. The pollen of the Lachrymose Hydreangea of Ghat. They would have been enveloped in a cloud of stinging pollen that causes nasal tissues severe irritation and which provokes uncontrollable secretion from the tearglands. Not lethal, just incapacitating. Neither would have been able to see to fight and in any case would have had other uncomfortable things to worry about. I had it ready for use last night, just in case any candidate believed the fairytale about inhuming their examiner, and the blowpipe was still set up for fast use, you see. Did I tell you I've been working with Mr Mericet on how to artificially replicate it in the lab?"** (2)**

* * *

And elsewhere in the City, Downey paid a handsome tip to the Gnolls who had dived and retrieved Timothy Walsham-Runton's body. The Assassins who had accompanied him gently and caringly laid him out in a coffin. They returned to the surface, quiet and unspeaking, and loaded the latest body into the Broom Wagon.

_Maybe the new way Vetinari and Vimes pushed on me isn't so bad after all, _Downey thought, biting back the bile. _At least it offers an extended second chance. Provided somebody like the Rust girl realises she only stands a chance if she learns to be conciliatory, and a little bit more humble and co-operative. _

_Maybe next year we make some of the traps and pitfalls a little less efficient. And use the extended second chance a bit more. Some of them might thrive on it. Maybe offer it as an alternative Final exam for some? As Vimes said, make the test as realistic as possible without testing to destruction. Poor Walsham-Runton had a lot of promise. _

"Mr Vimes? I got your order from the all-night engravers. Lady Sybil asked me to make sure they were properly wrapped and ribboned. She seemed to think you'd forget the small details."

"Thanks, Cheery." Vimes said to the Dwarf sergeant. "Stick around a while, will you? Miss Band here was telling me the Guild might accept its first Dwarf pupils next year. Male, and female. Give her a few tips."

Alice had been discreetly ticking Tump House pupils off her mental checklist for a while now. One was missing….but hadn't Joan off-handedly said "oh yes. Did one of yours. Very last candidate! Sent the mucky pup off for a damn' good clean-up and a change of clothes to make her fit to present in polite society!"

She looked around, hoping to see the mucky pup.

Vimes was now in amiable conversation with Colonel Wrangle and Brigadier Mountjoy-Standish, two senior army officers who he seemed to respect and get on with. They were talking about the glorious Revolution over thirty years before, rather before Alice's time. **(1)** Clive Mountjoy-Standish's daughter Emilia and Tom's son Mark had both succeeded in their runs, and were joining in the conversation. Alice knew Mountjoy-Standish senior had received his first active command in ages when Vetinari had recalled him to command the City's first horse artillery regiment, an attempt to adapt and improve on the "barking dog" technology of the Agateans. Mountjoy-Standish had then got his old friend Tom Wrangle back on active service again, and the two men thought of as the best and most able soldiers in the city were back in business. Working for Vetinari this time, and not for Selachii and Venturi. _There is no way Vetinari would want firepower like that in anyone's hands but his, _Alice thought. _It makes it easier to challenge the old order, for one thing. _She suddenly heard Emilia give a high-pitched girlish shriek. Yes. There she was. Jocasta Wiggs, in the middle of a fragrant cloud, in clean clothes, waving a rather soiled pink slip.

After the hugs and the kisses and the congratulations, after the Wiggs and Mountjoy-Standish and Wrangle families had shaken hands and congratulated each other's children, Vimes stepped forward, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Er… I'm not a big one for speeches and I don't really do emotional. But over the past few years, Sybil and I have seen young Jocasta here quite often. In quite a few different ways and quite a few different places, but never really at her best. She's dropped in at Ramkin House so often she's almost like one of the family, so to speak. I've already been told in no uncertain terms that I've got no place here and I should be off, but before I go, I'd just like to present Jocasta a little thing or two. One's from me and one's from Sybil."

Vimes handed over the carefully wrapped presents and stood back. Jocasta unwrapped them carefully, opened the presentation boxes and laughed. Alice stepped forward to see.

One was a perfectly normal silver salver engraved with the year and date of Jocasta's passing of her final exam, under the Guild crest. A discreet plaque said "From Lady Sybil Ramkin, with congratulations".

The other was more ornate. Again a shield, but with a moral fable engraved on it. Jocasta read it, her lips moving with the words, and looked at Vimes, who nodded encouragingly. Then she laughed, stepped forwards, and kissed Vimes on the cheek. He reddened slightly.

"It's just possible I shall treasure this for life!" Jocasta Wiggs murmured, holding it so Alice could read:-

**The Perils of Over-Confidence:-**

_In the bitter colde and Snowwe of the Zlobenian winter, a Peasant wanders down ye Roadde._

_He stoppes, and sees a small Byrdde on the Ground, near dead from the Colde. The peasant picked up ye Byrdde and warmed it. Ye Byrdde soon recovered itself and ye Peasant wondered what to do next._

_Then a Cowwe came by, and dropped a large hot steaming Turdde right in front of him. The Peassant then dydde place ye Byrdde in ye turdde so as better for it to stay warm until morning and then be able to fly away._

_But a Catte fared along after the Peasant hath gone, and hears the bird singing happily to itself in ye steaming mess. Ye Catte seized ye Byrdde, breaking its neck, for to taykke home for supper._

_This old fable hath 3 moralles:_

_1 Do not believe that everybody who drops you in ye Shitte is your enemy._

_2 Do not believe that everybody who gets you out of ye Shitte is your friend._

_3 Whenever you are in ye Shytte, keep quiet about it._

"Anyway, Sybil wants you round for dinner sometime" Vimes concluded. "You too, Alice. Apparently you went to the same school. Bring Jocasta. If she comes in through the door marked "guest", I promise we'll look after her."

He tipped his helmet again, and set off.

* * *

**(1)** Mountjoy-Standish and Wrangle appear in "Night Watch" as capable and able junior army officers, who really don't deserve "John Keel" outwitting them and wrecking their careers.

**(2) **Davinia is describing tear gas, horrible stuff that provokes floods of tears and snot as the body seeks to defend itself against a severe irritant. Not lethal, but not nice either.

_**{More to follow. This is to end the day's submissions on an up-beat note and send you to bed smiling}**_


	25. CrossGuild Cooperation

**This is for Fledge, with a guarantee that it will be completed. WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SEX AND FEMSLASH. IF YOU'RE TOO YOUNG OR NOT AT HOME WITH SEX, STOP READING NOW. **

**___________________________________________________**

As the celebrations of the morning faded and receded, many families were going home or going off for personal celebrations together, Alice having posed for several iconographs of Tump girls' graduation and even having rounded up as many of her graduates as possible for a semi-formal Tump House group picture. She found her footsteps moving back towards the Chapel, where her preparations for the night had begun, what felt like half a lifetime before. She remembered the greaseproof bag she'd acquired at the Guild kitchen, and secreted in an inner pocket.

_I'd better do this before it starts to stink, she thought_, and_ Oh alright then, they're all alive this morning, so I suppose I owe you! _

In the gloom of the Chapel, she discovered she wasn't alone.

Emmanuelle and Johanna had retreated there too, and they answered each others' unspoken questions.

"One in traction at the Lady Sybil, thanks to Sir Samuel. The rest got home alright. " she said.

"You know, Sam Vimes is perhaps not the complete bastard and enemy of Assassins he would like to be seen as.". Emmanuelle mused. "For myself, I lose two." She shrugged, expressively. "I wish I could say _c'est la vie_. Or even _c'est le morte_. But spare a thought for poor Joan. Of her Scholarship class, she has lost six."

Johanna looked glum.

"Three, from Raven. End one on a long period of study leave, on her way to Howondalaand. I hope she hes the wit to cross the border to the Boor country!"

"Lucinda Rust? I do not believe she could find her bottom with both hands and an anatomy book!" Emmanuelle said, unkindly.

Alice coughed.

"I've got a little ritual of thanks to make" she said. "Would you both care to join in and chant the response?"

Alice turned out the butchers' bag onto the altar slab dedicate to Blind Io.. The two unpleasantly globular sheeps' eyes plopped out onto it.

_To who he is blind yet sees all…. We offer praise unto the Harvester of Eyes, the all-blind and yet the unseeing…_

Her father had led this chant a thousand times if he'd done it once. Alice sung the line, the others the response:

Harvester of eyes, that's He_... (.Harvester of eyes)  
_And He sees all there is to see_...(Harvester of eyes)  
_When He looks inside your head_....(Harvester of eyes!)  
_Right up front to the back of your skull_....(Harvester of eyes!)_**(1)**

Alice raised the knife to Heaven, showed it briefly in the direction of Dunmanifestin and the Hub, then brought the tip down just hard enough to perforate both eyeballs.

"I thank you" she said, stepping back. The three paused for a few moments to reflect on the night past and give thanks. Alice waited to allow the spiritual essence and eyeballosity of the offering to rise to Blind Io in Heaven, then gingerly took up the empty charnel remains of the eyeballs and went outside. Yes, there it was. She wasn't surprised. A raven. She set the unexpected treat down where the bird could find it, then nodded and turned towards a sink to wash her hands.

"I don't know about you two, but I could use some sleep." she said. Then she turned, frowned, and looked at the raven again. No, probably just tiredness. But she could have sworn it was wearing a saddle…

Behind them, the Death of Rats, unheeded, leant indulgently against a wall and said SQUEAK! with great smugness.

"Thanks, buddy" Quoth said, indistinctly. "When I next see Blind Io, I'll mention to him that the Bishop of Quirm's daughter believes just enough to perform the old rite!"

* * *

Alice threw off her clothes, glad to be out of the clinging second skin of leather, and dropped into bed, for once without washing.

Before sleep, memories stirred…

Alice and Johanna had been sleeping together, in a platonic sense, for a few weeks. Alice tried to convince herself that it made sense, in an otherwise cold upper room, as winter drew on. Two bodies together kept each other warm, and it made good sense. And after all, Johanna was from an all-year-round-warm country: she wasn't used to Ankh-Morpork winters. This was only a _kindness,_ Alice tried to convince herself. Even so, it was the sort of kindness that could drive Alice to distraction: after a night of snuggled closeness to a perfectly-formed female body but with nothing she could do about it. Her only remedy in the morning was to lock the bathroom door and find five minutes to go solo, biting her lip to censor herself against making excessive noise when she climaxed.

And that was the other thing.

Whenever two young healthy people are forced by inclination or circumstances to share a room, there is a particular issue of room-sharing etiquette which is never, ever, spoken about in the books of manners and courtesy. Everybody who has been in this position knows about it, but nobody really wants to ever talk about it. It can have otherwise rational people, who could cheerfully discuss anything else under the sun _but this, _tied up in knots of squirming embarrassment.

It happened to Alice on those nights where Johanna slept in her own bed, generally furtively at around one in the morning. Alice appreciated that Johanna was waiting until when she thought Alice to be deeply asleep, and would therefore neither be listening nor, presumably, embarrassed.

_Well, I am! _Alice thought, listening to the furtive manipulation going on in the next bed, noises betraying that her room-mate was trying to masturbate without making the springs rattle too much and too suspiciously regularly, nor wriggle about too much, nor make too much noise, lest her room-mate be awoken and realize, thus bringing shame down on her head.

Alice wondered whether to join in, but thought better of it as this might really embarrass the poor girl. _She never went to a boarding school, _Alice thought, _After lights-out at QCYL, it was thought to be perfectly natural. We all did it. Just so long as you were careful to fantasise only about boys and didn't make the mistake of offering to lend a hand to the pretty girl in the next bed. There could be as many as thirty of you all going at it in unison after lights-out! _

Alice, feigning sleep, was careful to build an imaginative picture in her head as to how a sexually hung-up Boor girl might go about surreptitiously gaining necessary sexual relief. Sometimes, mischief made her stir in her "sleep", to hear all noise from the next bed suddenly cease to un-natural still dead silence… then she'd pretend to drop off again and allow Johanna to build to a vocally repressed final climax.

_And never more than once? She needs educating! _Alice decided, wondering about the right circumstances in which she could raise the issue, without undue embarrassment.

Alice herself saved her personal needs for the bathroom, preferring to go solo in the private luxury of the hot tub. This was just as well: Johanna, under Alice's tutelage, was beginning to shed some inhibitions and could at least come from bathroom to bedroom wrapped in a single damp towel. She was even allowing Alice the physical closeness of letting her brush and style that glorious red-gold hair. Alice appreciated these moments of getting up close to her bath-fresh room-mate, making them into sessions of mutual grooming that Johanna accepted were wholly proper, appropriate and delightful as between friends. As yet, Johanna was innocent that Alice's thoughts were straying towards less innocent matters, like seduction, but Alice reasoned that allowing herself a hobby – of working towards one day _properly_ bedding her thick, naïve, gloriously attractive room-mate – was keeping her sane in difficult circumstances. But how she'd achieve that final step with somebody who was hung up on all things sexual, especially lesbian, and particularly with somebody who like her was being trained to kill (and might well manifest this if threatened, affronted or betrayed) was for the moment beyond her.

_Ah well. Let's be platonic, for the moment…_

* * *

Alice was also noticing other things about her friend. One day, the genial Reverend Clement was talking to them about lifestyle and marriage customs back home in Kwa'Zululand. Emmannuelle was mischievously encouraging him to talk about attitudes to sexuality among the Zulu peoples, and, with a nod to Johanna, he was obliging, in some detail and frankness.

"We don't properly finalise the marital vows until we are forty, but that doesn't mean we have to live like monks and nuns beforehand, oh dear me, no." he said. For marriage to be withheld for so long makes it more likely that we have found the right person, for one thing, which means divorce or marital breakdown is unknown among us."

Joan nodded, approvingly. "Jolly good idea!" she said "But surely women start to have children before that?"

"We have a kind of conditional marriage" Clement said, "which allows for the making of children. As traditionally our children are raised by the tribe as well as the family, it matters less of the parents choose to separate or make final marriages with other people. All our children are loved and treated fairly and equally within the clan's kraal. Men generally do not become fathers until their thirties. Before then, younger men and women in their twenties and teens are encourages to have limited sexual contact, but not of the sort that makes children. With that one taboo, we may have sexual contact with whom we like, as often as we like, regardless of gender. Sometimes a male Zulu may wish, as his preference, contact with other males. Fine, so long as eventually he marries and fathers a child as his duty to the tribe. The same applies to women. As long as she has at least one child, she may love as she pleases, discreetly. I see you approve, Miss Band? Miss Smith-Rhodes, you appear distracted?"

Clement smiled, and carried on. "Do you know, I found the manners and morals of Ankh-Morpork, especially in the sexual sphere of human experience, to be strange and irrational. I find it hard to understand that your young people are constrained by a social expectation that they do not and should not masturbate. That is rather akin to telling young people not to breathe air or drink water. No wonder you grow up into adults with nervous tics! " He paused.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes, do you perhaps need to loosen your collar? You are looking rather disturbed and uncomfortable. No? Very well, then! As young people in the Kwa'Zulu lands, we are allowed masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral and anal sex as consensual ways of getting the urge out of our systems and maintaining psychological health. The one form we are forbidden is that which makes children, as we believe a mother under the age of perhaps twenty-five is too young for the responsibility."

_He's doing it on purpose, _Alice thought, smiling. _He's winding up Johanna. But in a nice way, with good intentions behind it. And there's something else there…_

"Why, at home I have two wives waiting for me. As several thousand miles currently separate us, they have my permission to seek sexual pleasure as they will, and I have theirs. This is described as a Quirmian Marriage, is it not, madame les Deux-Ėpées? A civilized concept, as no doubt you and your husband would agree!"

_And he's winding up Emmanuelle too…_

The Reverend N'Effabl wound up their group discussion with a smile, remarking that very soon the Guild will be taking your class out on a… well, let's just call it a _**soirée**_. Again, the intention is to test out how you behave and react in mixed social company. But I _really_ don't think they've thought out the implications of your being the first-ever female students to go on such a trip. Ah well, they'll find out in time for when the girl pupils arrive later in the year. Now I must go to my third year Applied Vindictive Theology class. Ladies. Miss Smith-Rhodes."

He tipped his hat and left.

Emmanuelle, later on, nudged Alice in the ribs.

"I think I've worked it out, _chère amie_" she said. "Johanna blushes whenever our so-attractive chaplain is nearby. She has, I think, ze torch on him. Hearing him talk the shocking talk about sex, she wants him in her bed. But she is Boor, and he is black of skin. So we have a conflict, yes? She is hot for him and ashamed of the desire. Ah, your clever, clever, uncle Hughnon! This is going to be so very interesting, ma _chèrie!"_

* * *

In the meantime, Alice was coming to terms with the definitive awareness that if Johanna had a crush on anyone at all, it was a lot closer to home than the chaplain… in fact, it was her, Alice Band, who was the object of her attention. Johanna said as much, one night in bed:

"You're so pretty, Ellice. You're so _sophisticated._ You're born to this sort of life! Me, I feel like the redneck beckwerd country girl next to you!"

Alice gently soothed her friend. "Well, it's true you're from another country a long way away, but you're marking yourself down really cruelly. There's no need for it!"

"Next to you, I feel ugly!" she wailed.

Alice sighed. This was going to be tricky.

"Look. You're not just pretty. You're actually quite stunning. Your wardrobe could use some improvement and I don't think I've ever seen you use makeup, but we can work on those. And I'm human, Johanna. When I go to the privy it certainly doesn't smell of roses, and for four or five days in the month I'm impatient and bad-tempered and could quite easily accept any contract going, for the sheer pleasure of taking it out on someone. I don't want to be a goddess. I'm human, Johanna. All I can ever promise you is friendship." Alice quickly kissed her on the lips. To her surprise, the girl kissed back.

"Thenk you, Ellice" she murmured, and went to sleep.

Alice sighed. Another sexless night, then.

* * *

The _**Concordat of the Assassins' Guild **_is the official handbook governing all matters to do with Assassination and the approved way in which the Assassin conducts himself at all times. In the chapters dealing with the education a young man may be certain of receiving at the Guild School, is a promise that the school curriculum includes lessons in all those areas of social deportment that make a man of the world who can blend seamlessly and effortlessly into any social company.

While the _**Concordat **_is regularly updated to allow for emerging changes and opinions in the world outside, at this point in time, on the brink of the biggest change of all to happen to the school, some of its language and assumptions have already been proven to be inaccurate and archaic. But as the School, at this exact moment, only has four female pupils, no thought has, as yet, been given to how the _**Concordat **_should be updated, especially in terms of "_conducting himself_", "_the thorough education a young man may expect to receive_" and the rather euphemistically described "_areas of social deportment_".

The Guild is just about to find out, as it seeks to cram five years of education into one for the Mature Students' Class, that the _**Concordat**_ desperately needs revising.

* * *

The _**soirée**_. that Clement had hinted at happened on the following Wednesday evening. The Mature Students' Class were instructed at short notice to dress as for a formal evening reception at a smart town house. Joan, Emmannuelle and Alice gathered round to dress Johanna up as best they could in a borrowed evening dress, piling and pinning up her hair in an approximation of current style, and applying minimal make-up.

The result didn't look bad, Alice conceded, although there was still a definite Second-Hand-Rose aspect to her.

"Alright, girls, let's go." Joan said, briskly. "Where is this wretched reception, anyway? Can't be the Palace. Vetinari doesn't usually give this sort of notice. One of the Lords, maybe. That's probably it. We're going to be bored out of our wits by Selachii or Rust or Eorle, just mark my words! Word of advice, girls. According to the boys, they watch and mark you on how well you fit in and how well you circulate."

Joan frowned. She'd asked some of the older boys, and they'd "erm'ed" and shuffled and averted her eyes, as if there was something else there that they weren't at home talking to a female teacher about. Ah well, she'd find out.

"I hope it is not Rust." Emmannuelle said. "The last I had to do with that family, I punched one of the sons."

"Why?"

"I was not wearing a sword" she shrugged.

"Coaches are waiting. Let's bag one." Joan said

They went down to the yard, noting the male part of the Mature Students Class seemed to be in on a secret they had not been admitted to. Their general deportment ranged from bravado to mild embarrassment. Alice felt she was intruding on a Lads' Night Out.

The Compte de Yoyo and Grune di Nivor were part of the escort: the third senior Assassin present was Lady T'Malia, who was black of face and looked like she'd been having an argument with her male counterparts. Alice looked at Joan and the others, All their eyes said "Something is going on". But then they were hurried into the coaches, before Joan could beard T'Malia.

The procession of coaches didn't travel very far across the city. Everyone disembarked . Outside the Seamstresses' Guild on Sheer Street.

"I hope they have a good explanation for this." muttered Emmanuelle, as they were swept inside by welcoming flunkies.

There was a good explanation. Well, an explanation, anyway. Emmanuelle stormed over to Rosie Palm herself, and quietly asked "Remember me?" in a low voice.

Rosie didn't bat an eyelid. "I heard what happened to you after this Guild turned you down for membership. Believe me, I'm truly sorry. I regret that we let you down."

"Quite. Now perhaps you pay amends, hmmm? _Pour commencer_. What is happening here and why.."

"Didn't you _know? _I knew that there are female candidates for Licenced Assassin status, but I was taken aback to see you were brought here tonight, as this evening isn't really for you, to be honest. That's why T'Malia, bless her, isn't happy. Look, sit down. I'll explain. You have read the school curriculum as it appears in the _**Concordat? **_The one they are training you mature students to? And are you aware what it really means by _lessons in all those areas of social deportment that make a man of the world?"_

She explained. Emmanuelle's jaw dropped.

"So… fourth and fifth and sixth form male pupils at the School are brought here, at Guild expense…"

"The Guild has a contract. And many of my girls love it when a Guild class is brought here. Strong, fit, well-bodied, handsome young men are something of a _contrast_, compared to what they normally deal with. The young men go away having had an extra dimension added to their education, and everyone is happy."

"But…. We're employed to deal with the girl pupils who arrive here next year… surely not?"

"No," Rosie said, briskly. "I think you misunderstand. I think it is expected that you will have to do exactly the _opposite_ for the girls. A young daughter of the upper classes is expected to be a virgin on her wedding night. You and your colleagues have been engaged to ensure that happy state of affairs continues throughout their schooldays. On the other hand, it's _expected _that their brothers will carry on being brought here. Their fathers pay a slightly inflated school fee in that year to pay for their sons' education in_ my _classrooms. Up until now, it's worked. Your male colleagues in the class are getting an unexpectedly pleasant evening, as part of their training, paid for by the Guild Council. The problem is, I thought I was only getting the _male _pupils. I'm not at all sure what to do to accommodate you four." She sighed.

"I'll speak to T'Malia" she decided, standing. "If you or Miss Band or the… Marriage Guidance Counsellor… can think of any productive way I could offer for you to spend your evening with us, I'd be delighted to hear it!"

"And you still owe me a favour!"

"I'll let you know when you've run out of favour, my dear. Of course, you could always work for me part-time?"

Emmanuelle laughed.

"But would the Guild allow it? I would bet half the men who come here are either _on_ our list of contracts or have _paid_ for contracts to be taken out on others. Or both!"

"Ah, the old conflict of Guild interests again!" laughed Rosie. "But so nice to meet you again, my dear. The very best of luck in your new career!"

* * *

Elsewhere, Johanna was the centre of interest among Seamstresses, who were admiring her complexion and her gorgeous hair and reaching out to touch it. She was giddy and flattered.

"So you ere Seamstresses." she said. "Tell me, I've never been clear ebout this. Does sewing things end stitching bring in much of a wage?"

There was an embarrassed silence. Joan stepped in. "Excuse me, girls." she said. "My friend is new to this city and Morporkian is not her first language."

"Evidently" said a Seamstress.

As Emmanuelle came back to them, shaking her head, Joan was busily explaining certain facts of life and semantics to the Howondalandian girl.

"Oh dear. She made the obvious mistake?"

"I'm afraid so. Ah, this is Mrs Battye. An old friend."

Joan made the introduction; Sandra Battye, a woman who looked indefinably out of place in this gathering, smiled and explained that she was a very old friend of Mrs Palm, and by arrangement, did the other sort of Seamstressing.

"Don't look so embarrassed, everybody makes that mistake."

Emmanuelle nodded.

"I have an idea. Mrs Battye, I know Mrs Palm is the very busy woman of _afffaires_, but could you arrange for her to give us a few minutes? I have the idea as to how our time here might best be spent. Where's Alice?"

They looked around. No Alice Band. Joan looked at Emmanuelle and a certain _knowing _expression passed between them.

"Perhaps Alice isn't finding this evening _quite _as much of a waste of time as we are?" Joan offered, poker-faced.

"_Mais oui_!" Emmanuelle said, forcing herself not to smile. "Alice would in certain respects be at home here tonight."

She looked at Johanna. Joan looked at Johanna.

"_Mais – pas devante la mignonne, peut-être?"_

* * *

Rosie Palm, recalled, heard Emmanuelle's proposal. Joan joined in with

"Your ladies do you credit, mrs Palm. Impeccably and tastefully dressed and made up. As you can see, our friend, through no fault of her own, comes from a remote colony, and is ill-equipped with the skills to dress and present herself to the standard the Guild requires. Perhaps your _coutumier_ and _styliste_ can spend a couple of hours with her? She might perhaps be able to borrow some dresses? To the value of what the Guild is prepared to pay on the entertainment of each male student here tonight?"

"But of _course_!" Rosie said. "Please, ladies, follow me! Wasn't there a fourth with you? Ah well, I daresay she's entertaining herself elsewhere."

* * *

The fourth had been accosted by one of the male students.

While the other men were happily mingling, drinking, weighing up and selecting from the ladies on offer , Alice, disgruntled, had been saying hello to a bottle of Zlobenian vodka. She had just started her second large glass when Graham Blakeney came up to her, looking furtive and worried. He was a quiet little man whom Alice had paid precious little attention to before then, but tonight she could see he was worried.

"Alice. Please help." He pleaded. "I can't do it! Not here! Not tonight!"

She nodded, sympathetically. Some men were more fastidious about these things. Or had opinions. Or were naturally celibate, perhaps impotent. And tonight, Clement had said, was still part of the training. They would be watched. And marked.

She got him a drink, and they sat down where they could not easily be overheard.

"How can I help you? What is there about me?" she asked.

"Don't you know?" Graham replied. "Can't you, of all people, see?"

"Who, me? Why should I be able to see?"

He gave a harsh, slightly effeminate, little laugh.

"Well, I've seen it in _you_ since day one, luvvie" he said.

Alice nearly dropped her drink. _He knows!_

"And I tell you what, I see a face like yours in the mirror every morning when I shave. Somebody who's desperately trying to fit in and present a face that says 'nothing _queer_ about me, luvvie' "

Seeing her stricken face, he patted her hand.

"It's called _gaydar_, my love. Takes one to spot one."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to another gay. And your secret's safe with me."

Alice made a decision. Seeing her three friends were all busy elsewhere, Emmanuelle talking to Rosie, Joan to Sandra Battye, and Johanna being mobbed by admiring Seamstresses, she swallowed her drink down and called a senior-looking Seamstress over.

"Is there a private room where we could wait, and Mrs Palm could come and talk to us about _special requirements_?" she asked.

"Of course. Come this way."

They were led out of the main salon to a private office. Drinks were brought. After an interval, Mrs Palm arrived.

"My friend here has a problem. I'm sure as a lady of great discretion you can find a solution?"

"But of course." Mrs Palm said, sizing up the two customers.

"_Both _of you will of course like to look at the appropriate _special list_?"

Alice looked dumbstruck. Rosie smiled. She had had long experience in matching clients to their needs.

"_All _my customers deserve utmost discretion, Miss Band. My invoice to the Guild is not itemized and nor does it discriminate. It is paid as a matter of honour and never questioned. Mr Wimvoe knows I bill reasonably and fairly. Your special interests are safe with me."

She rang a bell. A Seamstress came to the call.

"Fetch Mr Harris's special list, would you, Chloe? Thank you so much."

She lifted a large album down from the wall.

"This is the special list for ladies such as yourself, Miss Band. Indulge yourself, as the Guild will be paying. Ah, thank you, Chloe. Mr Harris is my agent for gentlemen of _taste_ and _discernment,_ mr Blakeney. He will ensure complete discretion and satisfaction in your choice!"

Alice and Graham looked at each other, shared an embarrassed grin, and opened their respective albums.

Alice turned the pages slowly and methodically, taking in the iconographs, the descriptions, the personal statements from each girl, and finally made a choice.

"This one". she said.

Rosie nodded.

"Donna. An impeccable selection. Will you be so kind as to follow me? I'll have someone deal with you when your selection is made, mr Blakeney."

Alice was led to a sumptuously decorated and furnished boudoir. There was wine in an ice-bucket, and two glasses. Alice, feeling oddly self-conscious, took a seat and poured a glass. This was the first time in her life she'd been with a Seamstress. Part of her mind relished the _naughtiness_ of it, while another part marvelled at how impersonal it all was. Still, she'd picked one who met her tastes completely. She hoped.

A little knock at the door. Then Donna was there, smiling, petite, pretty, girlish. Alice welcomed her with the other glass of wine, and they talked for a while. Then, the wine consumed, they moved to the bed and began to undress each other.

Donna shivered with every concealed weapon she discovered.

"Relax, my love. They're not meant for you" Alice soothed her, finding that being undressed and disarmed was turning her on beyond belief. If nothing else, it made up for weeks of inadvertent teasing from Johanna. Alice frantically kissed Donna's mouth and neck, running her fingers through the girlish bob of hair. The girl responded with passion and vigour, and their bodies and legs locked in ecstatic passion.

It was Donna who climaxed first, and after that she was eager to repeat the favour for Alice. It was setting in to be a far better night than Alice had expected…

Joan, leaving Johanna to the tuition of a different Guild's style counselors and professional dressers and make-up artists, nodded with satisfaction and went for another drink.

She ended her night in a social game of whist with Sandra Battye and the Guild enforcers, the Agony Aunts, who, recognizing a kindred spirit, treated her with respect and a certain admiration. In between hands, they discussed techniques for dealing with men who, regrettably, were unable to behave with _respect _and _courtesy _towards women. Joan learnt several new theoretical skills to add to her repertoire, and, in her own way, thoroughly enjoyed her night at the Seamstresses' Guild.

Alice, in a happy half-doze in Donna's arms, was awoken by Mrs Palm, who coughed and said the visiting party would be returning to the Guild in half an hour.

As they dressed, Donna sighed and wished Alice could stay all night.

"Would you ask for me when you visit again?" she asked.

Alice smiled.

"I'd like to. But I need to earn some money first. I can't go to Uncle Hughnon for a thousand-dollar sub to go to the Seamstresses Guild with. He indulges me, but I doubt he'd indulge me that far!"

"You're different. Most of the women who ask for me are older. And… plumper. And less athletic. They're nice, but it isn't often I get to see a young woman of nearer my own age. Not one who's as good in bed as you are. I wish I could see you… outside the Guild. Just for fun, no money. But there are rules about that!"

Alice kissed her again.

"I'll come back!" she said, and sincerely meant it.

They met again on the way out. Emmanuelle's face creased into a grin.

"Cherie! Where were YOU all night?"

Alice smiled, contentedly.

"Don't ask. I might tell the truth."

Graham Blakeney was one of the last to join the party. He raised an ecstatic thumbs-up to Alice. She returned his salute. _Great God Io, is that Johanna? She's been transformed! _Then they got in the coaches and went home, only to have to awaken at seven for pre-breakfast weapons drills, just to remind them life wasn't all about parties and earthly comforts.

* * *

This chapter ends here for now. There _will_ be more, but it's midnight and bed is calling. Call back soon for more femslash…..

1 **(1) **On Roundworld, performed by Gothic hard-rockers the Blue Öyster Cult, a band not unknown to Terry Pratchett. On the _**Secret Treaties**_ album of 1973.


	26. Debriefing

Lord Vetinari sighed. He always found chairing any meeting that involved the City Watch and the Assassins' Guild to be something akin to refereeing a heavyweight boxing match between trolls. **(1)**People would pay good money to watch the fight, but the referee had to dance hard and fast to avoid being caught in between them, even before asserting his will over both parties and insisting on minimal rules of engagement being obeyed by both contestants. As a graduate Assassin himself, he also had to work that much harder to be seen by Vimes as being wholly fair and impartial in any judgement. However, both parties could always be called to heel if he invoked the ultimate rule, in fact the nearest thing Vetinari had to a single inviolable rule – _the good of the city. _

He smiled at the two delegations, and made a conversational opener.

"I was rather gratified with the _**Times **_this morning." he said. "Its coverage of graduation morning at the Assassins' Guild School was _especially_ fair and thorough. Let me see…. The sub-headline _We have seen the future of Howondalaand in the face of its young people, _underneath the pictures of young Assassins celebrating their graduation, was very pleasing. As I remarked to the ambassadors this morning, a wind of change is beginning to blow across that war-torn continent, and it began in the courtyard of the Assassins' Guild this morning. **(3)**By the time it reaches Home and has picked up force, who knows? And in thirty years' time, when the Retief twins are in positions of power and influence in their country, and Joshua N'Kouth has ascended at least to the status of a Paramount Prince, we may see a different Howondalaand. I find it amazing what seven years of fair and co-operative mixed education can do to break down entrenched attitudes. You are to be congratulated, Lord Downey."

"Thank you, my lord."

Vimes shuffled in his seat. He'd brought Carrot and Angua as back-up: Downey, he noticed, had brought Mericet with him to speak for the Old Order, no doubt, but it was also interesting that the dry and dour Joan Sanderson-Reeves was there to speak for the New School. Vimes paused for a moment, trying to straighten out his opinion of her. Yes, it had stung at the time that Vetinari had effectively taken the criminal investigation out of his hands, when as far as he was concerned the Cable Street people had done all the work, and handed it over to the Assassins at just the point where he was poised to make the arrest. Yes, she was a mass-murderer. _But then, show me an Assassin who isn't. _And Vetinari had effortlessly manipulated the situation to steer her away from a short suspended sentence at the Tanty, and into a life of useful service at the Guild School teaching Domestic Science. _If she ever writes the recipe book, I've got her for incitement and conspiracy. God knows what she teaches young Assassins._But he had to hand it to her – grudgingly. She'd made good her probation, grasped her last chance with both hands, and rehabilitated herself to the point where bloody Downey himself appeared to have conferred Senior Assassin status on her. _And she's quite a smart, clever, fundamentally upright, citizen, give or take her predeliction for disposing of other peoples' errant husbands. Sybil likes her, and Sybil is normally a sound judge of character, Nobby Nobbs excepted. _Maybe Vetinari was right to do a Lipwig on her and spare her the noose, on the grounds she had talents the City could use. If we'd hung her back then, we'd never have seen this now. Maybe Vetinari's way is the right way. He said he abhors needless waste of human material. Which leads us to…

"I was reviewing the paperwork relating to the Graduation Class Final Examination last night" Vetinari went on, conversationally.

Vimes noticed Downey becoming fractionally more tense and alert. Vetinari continued.

"Obviously these are first impressions from the raw statistics. Thank you, Drumknott."

He took the offered file. Six people in the room all tried not to be noticed reading the title upside-down. It read

_**Unacceptable levels of mortal injury during Assassins' Guild Final Exams.**_

_What level is acceptable, if ever? _Vimes wondered, trying not to picture Jocasta Wiggs lying stiff and broken on the mortuary slab, eighteen years of life snuffed out in one awful night. _Get a grip. Yes, you're fond of the girl. But be professional!_

"One hundred and eighty-four candidates set out from the Guild last night." Vetinari remarked. "One hundred and sixty-two, at the last count, remain alive this morning. My maths is not perfect. But I calculate that to be an eleven percent Failure rate. Slightly more than a one in ten chance of Failure. Placed in merely human terms, that represents twenty-two young lives which were ended last night. Twenty-two families who are grieving even as we discuss this matter."

Vetinari steepled his fingers. Downey made no comment, but Mericet rushed in to fill the silence.

"In previous years, my lord, it has been as high as twenty-five per cent. A certain level of wastage has always been accepted as part of the final examination."

Vimes saw Angua and Joan both wince. Joan said, in a carefully modulated voice:

"In _my_ graduation class, the _human wastage_ was nearer thirty-three per cent."

Vimes nodded appreciatively on the spin she put on "human wastage." Maybe Medusa's heart wasn't as stony as he thought. He glanced round to where Angua and Carrot had just looked at each other, as if for confirmation that they hadn't misheard Mericet's coldly dispassionate reference to a certain level of wastage.

Downey coughed, and said: "I will draw your attention, my Lord, to the undeniable fact that taken year-by-year, the , ah, _human wastage rate_, has been dropping significantly, both in terms of accidents during training and on the Final Examination. Given the experimental adjustments to examination procedure that we were persuaded to factor in this year, I have every expectation that the rate will continue to drop."

Vetinari looked at him unsympathetically.

"Be that as it may, my Lord, I had two delicate and rather uncomfortable personal interviews earlier this morning. One with the parents of Lady Susan Venturi, and one with Lady Rust. I gather Lord Rust was, ah, indisposed."

As one, everyone, including Drumknott, turned to look at Sam Vimes.

"Don't look at me!" he protested. "I'll grant you I'm usually the reason for Ronnie Rust being indisposed, and ye Gods, it took a hell of an effort not to thump him one this morning, especially after he gave me the benefit of his opinion concerning my son, but as it happens this time around it was Lady Rust who belted him."

"Indeed, Sir Samuel. And your rather contented expression is also noted, Miss Sanderson-Reeves. But. Back to the point. Attempts have been made to persuade me that far too many of the Failed candidates come from good families. These are the ones with the power and influence to make noise and complain very loudly at the fact their child Failed finals. And in their… extreme disillusionment… they choose to complain to me."

"So we're saying that Mr Mericet's "acceptable rate of human wastage" only becomes _**un**_acceptable when the human potential being wasted belongs to the nobility?" Angua asked. "Excuse me, is there some sort of sliding scale that values a Lord's son or daughter at five times that of a merchant's? Ten times the worth of a Morporkian street kid?"

"And six of the dead last night came from MY class of day pupils!" Joan put in. "SIX, my lord. Out of the thirty I started with seven years ago. But nobody seems concerned about that because they were only scholarship pupils! No influential relatives to speak for them and make a noise at the Palace!"

Vetinari held up a hand for silence.

"I can see this is arousing passionate feelings" he said. "Please be assured that I personally place no higher value on the life of Lady Susan Venturi than on, for instance, Tracey Boggis of the scholarship form. The loss of a child necessitates the same grief and pain regardless of the social status of the parent. But Miss Boggis' parents are a lot less likely to demand a personal interview with me to ask _why_."

"Oh, I daresay it could be arranged." Joan mused. Vetinari looked at her sharply, but met only a bland poker face.

"Yes, it very probably could!" Vetinari agreed.

"Sir, it may be likely to be a lower figure than twenty-two, if we factor in three student Assassins who, fortunately for them, my Watch patrols got to first." Vimes glared at Downey. "They have varying degrees of physical injury and were certainly unable to carry on the Test last night, but my Igor tells me that they're on the road to full physical recovery. We got them to the Lady Sybil Free Hospital and placed them in the care of Doctor Lawn and his staff. Moss.. Doctor Lawn's resident Igors and my Watch Igor carried out an operation on the most badly injured. They say …"

"You let IGORS loose on my Assassins?" Downey almost shouted.

"Does that offend your sensibilities, Donald? Shambling self-assembled creatures from Überwald laying their filthy peasant hands on your young ladies and gentlemen? At least the Code of the Igors is about _healing. _I hear the code of your – housekeeping squads? – is all about delivering the _misericordia. _Isn't that Latatian for 'this one's broken beyond all repair, let's not bother taking him to an Igor who can probably work miracles, those chaps are _well _below the salt socially speaking. Let's just discreetly cut his throat or give him a nice soothing drink to ease him out of this vale of tears. If his parents ask, we bung them a posthumous Assassins' Licence in a nice frame and say what a shame he isn't here to appreciate it.'. Donald, there's a girl from your school who thanks to three Igors will be able to walk again in ten weeks time. Despite breaking her bloody back in three places! I'm glad we got to them first before your broom wagon did!"

"You have three of my pupils under armed guard and you are refusing to let my staff in to see them!"

"Donald, in cases where we believe the life of an injured person to be at continued and real risk, you will find I have _every _right to put an armed guard at the hospital bedside and vet all visitors." Vimes said. "All I want from you is a cast-iron assurance these three student Assassins are not subject to what I hear is your mucky little secret. Housekeeping. Tidying-up. Sanitary action. So far you have refused to give it. So no access."

"Lord Downey, what's so wrong with employing an Igor?" Joan asked. "Sounds like a damn' good idea to me and it'd be a damn sight more effective than that bloody useless pox-doctor!"

"Igors are… well, they're not our sort of people. People might complain. Parents."

Joan barked out a harsh laugh. "Utter twaddle, Master! I tell you what, I'm not the world's greatest edificeer. If I fell off a wall and broke my back, I wouldn't be asking the people who rescued me and who propose to fix the injury to hold on for ten minutes, while I check if they're listed in Twurps!"

"Wouldn't be seen dead going to an Igor." mused Captain Carrot. "Well, you'd get your wish in the Assassins' Guild!"

"I'm not answerable to you for how I run my Guild!" Downey half-shouted at Vimes.

"No, you aren't." Vetinari agreed. "However, a _very _good case could be made for your being answerable to me for how you run your School! There are precedents, city statutes, laws, commissions, School Inspectors. Arch-chancellor Ridcully recently had to concede that the City has a legal right to inspect all aspects of the running of his University. I'm minded to apply the same precedent to mere schools."

Vetinari paused to let the implications sink in.

"Even though there are certain time-honoured traditions and some extenuating circumstances, in my understanding, the great majority of educational establishments actively refrain from deliberately killing their pupils. They appear to have some understanding of the phrase "duty of care".

After another meaningful pause, Vetinari smiled, mirthlessly.

"I'm pleased the mortality toll from last night now appears to have reduced to nineteen. I will ask Doctor Lawn to confirm to me that the three student assassins in his care are stable and expected to make a full recovery. That being the case, a doctor of his considerable experience would not expect to see any, ah, sudden relapses, of the sort that can so regrettably happen at three in the morning, when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb. Especially not the sort of relapses that might well arouse cause for suspicion, if subjected to post-mortem, or forensic examination by the rather bright Sergeant Littlebottom. This being the case, I'm sure Commander Vimes can find other duties for the Watchmen currently on guard duty at the Free Hospital? And I'm sure Miss Sanderson-Reeves would not mind visiting the Free Hospital on behalf of the Guild, as she strikes me as a teacher with the best interests of her pupils at heart? And once healed and passed as fit, those three students may be granted, without penalty, a second chance of passing the Final Exam? We're all agreed, then. Capital."

Vetinari paused.

"Shall we examine in greater detail some ways in which the butcher's bill which is the Final Exam may be further reduced? Commander Vimes, you were issued several pre-agreed letters to be used at your discretion last night. I understand one lucky recipient is, even as we speak, on a sea voyage she would not have chosen of her own volition?"

"Yes, sir. I got the idea from an assassination attempt on myself some years ago. The ninth attempt. When my price was set at six hundred thousand dollars."

Vimes grinned, nastily.

"Oh, yes, sir. The one where the Assassin actually claimed to be a temporary valet sent from Keeble's employment agency? He intended to poison your shaving cream? And Willikins made him eat it?"**(4)**

"Captain Carrot, a fine memory for detail, as always." Vimes complimented him. "Yes, the honorable Eustace Gassingly-Bore."

Mericet coughed, softly.

"I believe it's actually Bassingly-Gore, Sir Samuel."

"I stand corrected. In any case, after I'd had him shanghaied halfway around the world, at his own expense, incidentally, it took him slightly less than a year to make it back under his own steam. Which got me thinking. Why not incorporate that into Assassin training, as a sort of initiative test? _Much_ better than lying in a dark alley with every bone in your body broken, gasping up your life's blood and waiting for the Housekeeping Squad to offer you a nice refreshing last drink. Less terminal. Gassing-Bore proved it can be done. Now Lucinda Rust is about to follow in his footsteps. Which was a _hell _of an effort last night, after she shot Ping and would have killed Reg Shoe, if he were actually alive to be killed again. The lads don't like that sort of thing.

" Now I hear young Lucinda doesn't like black people very much. Which from her point of view is a bit of an oh-dear situation, as the deal with Jenkins is that he drops her off on the coast of Kwa'Zululand. She is going to be _absolutely _dependent on black people to get her out of their country. I've spoken to your very capable Chaplain, Lord Downey, and he's having it put out on the jungle drums at home, to be prepared to welcome White-Girl-Pain-In-Arse and speed her way to the jungle border with Klatch. His message should get there before she does, so they'll be ready.

"They're going to get her to a certain wadi where the jungle gives way to scrub and the genuine Klatchian desert. I hope she can live on dates, because she's going to be stranded there for a month until another old friend who owes me a favour turns up on his patrol beat. Seventy-One hour Ahmed. You know him, Guild graduate. Guild honour, of course he's got to help a fellow guild member, even if she _is_ a grade one brat. And of course she gets to learn a lot about he way the world really is. Think of it as the _Grand Unsneer_, on a budget, through all the black and brown-skinned countries."

"I can see you've thought this one through, Sir Samuel." Vetinari said, nodding.

"Well, if I'd just had her dumped in Genua or Brindisi, it wouldn't be a test. All she needs do is clacks Daddy and beg for him to send money or a coach ticket. No, they're going to places where there aren't any clacks."

"That seems…acceptable" Downey said, trying to suppress a smile.

"And the other innovation last night. I believe the _Escape and Evasion _exercise was a complete success all round? "

"Yes sir, we're very pleased with that." Captain Carrot said. He unfolded a report sheet.

"According to our intelligence, forty-eight student assassins were directed to Commander Vimes' garden. We had continual patrolling going on as well as camouflaged fixed observers, and we succeeded in detecting and detaining forty-six out of forty-eight intruders. Only two Assassins were able to reach their control point undetected by us."

"How do you know only two students got to me undetected if you didn't detect them?" Joan asked, penetratingly. Carrot _erme'd_. Vimes stepped in.

"Did you notice the ornamental gargoyles on the summerhouse roof?" he asked. "Actually Constables Downspout and Drainpipe. A species with very good memories and acute hearing. They prepared a list of the names of all forty-odd students who identified themselves at your checkpoint. I compared that with my list of forty-six who gave themselves up".

"I do notice once you'd got them in custody, the holding areas seemed woefully insecure." Vetinari remarked. "As all but two treated Watch detention as a temporary inconvenience and were able to break out again"

"I know, sir. I'll have to have a word with the gardener about installing more secure sheds."

"Indeed, Sir Samuel." Vetinari and Vimes held each other's gaze for an instant. The Patrician looked away. "And your impressions of the night?"

"A very useful and valuable exercise, sir. I'm obliged to Lord Downey for his willingness to participate. It gave my Watchmen a valuable exercise in patrolling, I was able to test my own home security under real conditions, and of course it tested those skills that student Assassins needed to be examined in – but under non-lethal conditions.

"I will add that almost all the Assassins we caught seemed genuinely surprised we were there, and gave themselves up without much of a fight, and were very co-operative. Initially we had surprise on our side. But once they'd had time to evaluate and think, their skills and teaching came into force, and that did show. Given a little time to think about it – and we deliberately tried to spread them out over seven or eight lock-up points so that there was very rarely more than one in the same cell - the vast majority of them worked out for themselves that it was an _escape and evasion_exercise. Therefore the rules obliged them to escape custody and make it to the checkpoint. The moment miss Sanderson-Reeves acknowledged them, we considered it "game over" from our point of view. Kept her busy all night, though. They were ctually queueing up for her, at one point! I had to put a Watchman on traffic duty and remind them about no talking, this is an exam!"

"But two didn't?"

"Two students were so demoralized by being captured that they chose to remain in custody, sir. Which is why I counsel that those two should give up all hope of being Assassins, without sanction, and leave the Guild now, while they still can. Find something else to do with their lives, as to be honest if they fold that quickly under pressure, they'll never make it. Better they stay alive as failed Assassins, and find other trades."

"Agreed" Vetinari said, taking the slip of paper with two names written on it. "And the two who completely evaded your security systems and all your Watchmen were?"

"Sharon Higgins. Scholarship girl, apparently, sir. She'd make you a good Dark Clerk."

"Noted. And the other?"

"Jocasta Wiggs, sir. Then again, it's not as if she hasn't had practice at scouting my garden."

"Lord Downey? Your opinion?"

"I'm forced to agree with Sir Samuel. It was a very worthwhile addition to the exam curriculum, and with his permission, I would like to repeat the exercise next year."

"Miss Sanderson-Reeves?"

"A jolly exciting night. I must say it was very well organized!"

"Indeed. So if two more students can now be accounted for as having chosen to remain in Watch detention rather than return to incur the wrath of the Guild for failing, then that further reduces the death toll to seventeen. I'm aware this is a dangerous night and accidents will happen, sometimes mortal ones, but my considered opinion is that in these enlightened times, seventeen is still too many. Lord Downey, Mr Mericet, I wish for a still greater reduction next year. Am I understood? And I would like to see the Guild employ at least one Igor. There's no shame in that. Their family is older still and has a better pedigree than many of our noble houses! And I would eventually like to see you institute mobile emergency squads that can note if a Candidate is having trouble on, for instance, the Emergency Drop, who may then intervene to prevent fatal injury! I believe at least some of those deaths last night were due to negligience and abandonment. Miserable deaths in lonely places. Regular checking would have rescued..some...of those casualties. I believe those deaths could and should have been prevented and were down to negligience. "

Downey agreed, albeit reluctantly. Joan smiled, having got what she'd come to argue for. Only Mericet remained in fighting mode.

"Sir, I must protest! In all my more than forty years with the Guild I can safely tell you I have never seen such a degree of feather-bedding and mollycoddling of student Assassins! How will they learn if they are not continually followed by the fear of death?"

"More happily and less fearfully, I expect." Vetinari said. He left the desk and held the door open.

"Mr Mericet, if today's Guild is not to your liking any more, there is always honourable retirement."

"I may well take it" Mericet hissed. "Female Assassins. _Safe _exams. An end to the _misericordia._ This isn't my Guild any more!"

"Many old men say that after nearly half a century's loyal service. Things change. Goodbye, Mr Mericet."

_Mericet's had his chips, then, _thought Vimes.

Vetinari paused and added "No great rush."

* * *

1 Troll boxing was a popular gladiatorial sport in Ankh Morpork. People were prepared to place large bets _even knowing that most bouts were promoted by Chrysoprase _**(2).** The weight divisions begin with _Pumiceweight_ (one ton) and ascend by increments _to super-igneousweight_ (three tons). This necessitates a specially reinforced ring with high-stress steel cabling in place of ropes. Of course, the possibility of a "rope" snapping adds an extra frisson of danger for spectators, and offers something genuinely random for the Gamblers' Guild to bet on.

(2) Who made Don King look positively honest by comparison.

2 **(3) **Vetinari is echoing British prime minister Harold Macmillan, who in 1960 spoke of _"a wind of change blowing across Africa_", in a historic speech signifying Britain's willingness to surrender its African empire to native self-rule. The speech was also a diplomatic warning to the Union of South Africa, pointing out that if it persisted with white rule and the divisive system of apartheid, it would do so without the support or approval of Britain. South Africa promptly seceded from the Commonwealth and declared itself a Republic, and persisted with apartheid until the early 1990's. Its neighbour Rhodesia broke links with Britain and kept its apartheid state going, despite civil war, until the early 1980's. While all around, African colonies became self-ruling states, one of the most successful of which was Kenya, which insisted its white population remained as wholly equal Kenyan nationals. Its leader, who held out the olive branch to Kenyan whites, and made his nation one of the wealthiest in Africa, was Joshua N'Kromo.

3 See _**The Fifth Elephant. **_


	27. Afterwards

GC26 – aftermaths

On a warm summer morning, Brigadier Clive Mountjoy-Standfast and Colonel Tom Wrangle sat their horses and looked towards the Pseudopolis-wards horizon. The open fields outside the City that by convention were used as a military training area were at the moment deserted, apart from a working party of trolls and golems who had just finished setting up the targets and who, job finished, were tramping back to the city. Two of the virtually indestructible military golems remained, stolidly holding up large red flags at each extreme of the range area.

"They should be here in the next five minutes, sir." Tom Wrangle reported, checking a fob watch.

"Capital!" said the civic dignitary who had driven out to watch the display. "Mr Chriek, very soon you will have some unparalleled action photographs to put in the Times!"

The vampire iconographer nodded his acknowledgement, and went back to checking his equipment. Behind Vetinari's party, Lords Rust, Eorle, Selachii and Venturi also sat their horses, looking glum and less than happy. The Duke of Ankh, who was the very first to admit he was not a horseman, was sitting atop Vetinari's coach, companiably sharing a water bottle with the two newest Dark Clerks who were assigned to escort duty on the Patrician.

"Thank you, sir." said Sharon Higgins (Licenced Assassin), as she took a deep draught. Vimes grunted.

"I'd still like to know how you got into and through my garden and walked through half the Watch as if they weren't there. With nobody noticing. You were just about the only one!" he said. She smiled.

"I got the idea from Miss Sanderson-Reeves, sir. Nobody notices you if they think you're meant to be there. She did one of her inhumations dressed as a nurse, and it took ages for people to make the connection because they expected a nurse to be at the client's bedside. The moment I got into your garden and realized the Watch were there, I found a Watchman's helmet that had been knocked off in a struggle. So I just took my cloak off, put the helmet on, and joined in the chase for myself. Sergeant Colon was very helpful, when he pointed at me and said 'Y_ou! Block the way to the summerhouse, will you? That's where the bloody Assassins are meant to be reporting to their teacher, and maybe you can stop her!"_

Vimes laughed and winced at the same time. "Still got the helmet?"

"Yes, sir."

"Keep it! You put one over on us and won it fair and square."

Elsewhere, the conversation was also about the recent Assassins' Finals.

"What's your boy planning to do now he's graduated school, Tom?"

"I knew Mark was never going to practice as an Assassin." Tom Wrangle said. "He was just doing it for the challenge of passing. Now he's had the education and got it out of his system, he's going on to the Academy at Sto Lat. Should graduate as a subaltern in two years, hopefully."

Clive sighed. "One thing you can say for the Assassins, they teach a lot of practical skills an Army officer in the field is going to find damn useful. Not the killing side, I mean, although if it comes to it, that helps. More your weapons drills, your fieldcraft, wilderness survival, and so on."

He paused, reflectively.

"Has Millie worked out what she's going to be doing next? I mean, I can't see her being an _active_ Assassin. I've known her all her life, and all that."

Clive Mountjoy-Standfast sighed, expressively.

"That's just the thing. She said herself, could you see us sending her to an expensive finishing school in Quirm or Sto Helit, now? To use her own well-chosen words, it'd be a waste of money as she'd, and I quote, just be bored _right _off her tits."

"Beats me where young girls learn that sort of language"

"Quite. Speaking of the Royal Military Academy in Sto Lat, Tom, did you hear they've been following the experiment at the Assassins' School with great interest. And having seen how the first batch of girl pupils has turned out, they're prepared to enroll a class of women cadets. Half of 'em are going to be Assassin School trained. And I couldn't say "no", could I? She's got it in the blood."

Tom grinned a long slow grin.

"So my Mark and your Millie are in the same year at Sto Lat. Who _don't _threaten to kill cadets who wash out. Damn fine! But what's she going to do for a job when they commission her as a second lieutenant? Openings for women officers are a bit thin on the ground, surely?"

"Now, maybe, but in two or three years? In any case, the Borogravian Army's been recruiting women soldiers for a while now. They shape up damn capably, too! That's her ambition, to do a Perks in the Borogravian Army. Bit hairy, bit dangerous, but I suppose if you tolerate it of your sons, you can't deny your daughters. Not in this modern world we live in."

Wrangle nodded, reflectively.

"And her friend Jocasta Wiggs? Nice girl, I thought."

"She's doing a year out, by all accounts. She's been invited on an archaeological dig out towards Brindisi. Not much pay, she says, but hard work out in the sun with cool tavernas to go to in the evening. Her old teacher's organising that. Alice Band. Good woman, Alice. Jocasta's in safe hands there!"

"And speaking of the modern world, Clive, here they come!"

Clouds of dust on the horizon resolved themselves into horse-teams pulling limbers, to which were attached wheeled devices, the purpose of which was at first unclear. At the sight of them, the knot of old-school military officers represented by Rust and the Lords of the City perked up and paid attention. They also did not look very pleased about it.

Within minutes, the blue-uniformed soldiers had wheeled their horse-teams through a half-circle and to a halt. Most of the crew leapt off, some unhitching the wheeled device as an NCO directed the direction in which to point it, others reaching for unspecified tools and equipment. A flurry of unclear activity went on around each of the four strange weapons, as the hauling teams were led to the rear. This involved ramming things down the large drainpipe- like brass tubes, while a man with a lighted match stood by at its rear. The distant targets looked like… lines of infantry and cavalry on the march, about six hundred yards away.

Clive heard Sergeant-Major Williams yelling "READY!". But he was looking at the faces of Rust and Eorle and the rest. Particularly Lord Venturi, who had sacked him from his last regimental posting as a "rank bad hat". He knew Tom Wrangle had a similar issue with Lord Selachii. And both had an issue with Rust, who at one time or another had served alongside both of them, and then unaccountably been promoted over both their heads. Well, not _unaccountably_. Lordship, in the eyes of those with influence, always out-trumped a mere _mister_. It cetanly counted for more than _talen_t and _ability_. But just maybe things were beginning to change…

Still looking at the lords, Clive raised his sword-arm and let it drop.

The four cannon exploded in a volley of smoke and ear-splitting noise. As the smoke ebbed, explosions sounded among the dummies of infantry and cavalry soldiers: Clive could see by the looks on the old Lords' faces that his mens' fire had been accurate, and that massive holes had been blasted in the carefully placed dummies' ranks. And the cannon were reloading, this time with Captain Shrapnel's technological innovation…

"Four minutes, Clive, between unhitching and firing!" Tom shouted. "And look what we've already done to their cavalry!"

It was true: huge empty gaps had been blasted in the lines of the life-size plywood and cardboard cut-outs that represented men and horses. And there was more to come: the capable Captain Shrapnel was redirecting the fire against the brick and sandbag redoubts which, in active service, would have been fortified positions offering shelter to men.

Several volleys later, and these too were blasted into ruins. Tom punched his fist into his hand excitedly. All the drills, all the evolutions, all the sweat and swearing, were paying off. The Ankh-Morpork Horse Artillery had demonstrated its worth, right from unpromising beginnings all those months ago with the "acquired" Agatean Barking Dogs. The Guild of Artificers had refined the design and rebuilt the Dogs from the wheels up, incorporating a hydraulic-and-spring recoil absorbtion system that stropped the whole thing leaping into the air and backwards for about ten feet on firing, thus being as much of a danger to the men firing it as for those in the indeterminate place where the round would land.

Similarly, advances in optics had created the telescopic ranging system, which in conjunction with the better and more stable exothermic alchemical reagents **(1) **devised by the Alchemists' Guild could accurately deliver sixteen pounds of solid lead shot to the chosen target at up to a thousand yards. Or grapeshot. Or chainshot. Or the lethal storm of _shrapnel._

A bugle sounded: the limbers trotted up, the Dogs were re-hitched, the crew stowed equipment and remounted, and within minutes they were riding off.

Vetinari nodded at Sam Vimes, who grinned back, making sure Rust and Selachii shared the triumphant smile.

The Lords, who annually spent millions on raising conventional cavalry and infantry regiments loyal, at bottom, only to them, recovered from stunned surprise and mobbed Vetinari, angry and shocked. The two Dark Clerks moved to left and right of their employer and adopted relaxed-alert positions. Vimes put himself between Rust and Vetinari.

"My Lord, I protest! That isn't _soldiering,_ that is mass slaughter!"

"That's never put you off before, Ronnie." Vimes remarked. "By the way, had a postcard from Lucinda yet? _Dear Daddy, I love you despite the fact you wrote me off as dead…"_

Vetinari raised a hand for silence.

"How can conventional troops fight that?"

"It's intolerable that we can't raise this artillery…"

"You're making our regiments _obselete_!"

"Really, Lord Rust? All the Duke of Ankh and I are doing is what you do: spending our surplus personal income on raising and maintaining military units. Except that while Lord Vetinari as a private citizen is raising a Regiment, as is his right, Lord Vetinari the Patrician is stipulating that its loyalty is vested in the City and only in the City and its legally constituted government. You all know he principle involved? _Agatean Doors,_ I believe it's called. The term is often used to justify what might otherwise be schizophrenic conflicts arising in the same head. It appears to work. And as this new type of Regiment requires large financial investment in the equipment and technology, I actively welcome the Duke of Ankh's financial support in establishing and maintaining it. He too agrees that only the City should have this sort of firepower available to it."

Vetinari let this sink in.

"I realize that you may have to re-appraise your rather expensive hobby in the light of these changes in the nature of likely future warfare. But I'm minded to remind you in particular, Lord Rust, of your words to me during the Leshp emergency, where you invited me to stand down as Patrician for the duration. You were considerate enough to point out that your Regiments were in the streets outside, purely coincidentally, as a counter-measure to any civil disturbances that might happen if I insisted on clinging to power. . I stood down to prevent any bloodshed at a time when this city needed to project strength and unity of purpose. I would be sorry if the money invested in your Regiments were to be wasted by technological improvements in the nature of war and warfare."

Vetinari smiled at Rust. The smile said _Try it again, and with great reluctance at the waste of life involved, you will see I am now ready with a blunter implement of my own. Your move? _

"The suggestion has been made, gentlemen, that rather than the Army remaining in the hands of private citizens, it is brought under City control, commanded by professionally trained military officers loyal only to the City. With the aid of General Mountjoy-Standfast and Colonel Wrangle – dear me, what am I saying, at present you're only a Brigadier – I may have made a modest start. It remains a long-term possibility".

"Mountjoy-Standfast? But he's barely a Right Honourable! You CANNOT have a General who's a mere Mister!"

"In a modern Army" Vetinari dismissed them, "all things are possible. I'd like to think fair promotion on the sole grounds of talent, regardless of social rank, might one day be possible. If you wish to be soldiers, then my advice to you is that it is _not_ a hobby activity. You need to work at it. No more questions? Then good-day to you."

He nodded, asked Wrangle and Mountjoy-Standfast to meet him at the Palace concerning the little matter of establishing a Secretariat for Defence, and was off.

As his coach moved off, with the Duke of Ankh making hand gestures to Rust, Mountjoy-Standfast and Wrangle smiled at their former employers.

"You'll have to excuse us, gentlemen. We have a Regiment to run." Then they too rode off, leaving the old way of things abandoned and disregarded in the wilds.

* * *

_**Abercrombie-ffitch, Calum.**_

_**Bailey, Anthony.**_

_**Boggis, Tracey.**_

_**Coypu-Congleton, Carinthea**_

_**Donavan-Myerscroft, Jacintha.**_

_**Dudley-Bohay, Noel.**_

_**Foxache, Arthur Michael.**_

_**Hendricks, James.**_

_**Keith, Richarda.**_

_**Madden, Kristina.**_

_**O'Hagan, Liam Thomas.**_

_**Peppercombe, Agnetha.**_

_**Rawlinson, Vivian,**_

_**Venturi, Lady Susan.**_

_**Von Senger und Etterlin, Joachim.**_

_**Walsham-Runton, Timothy.**_

_**Zappa, Francis.**_

**____________________**

_**ANKH-MORPORK TIMES (The Truth Shall Make Ye Ferret)**_

_**SPECIAL INVESTIGATION!**_

These seventeen unremarkable names each have a particular poignancy to a family in Ankh-Morpork tonight. Each is a young person of age seventeen or eighteen who Failed the final exam at the Assassins' Guild School. This school is unique in that to fail its final exam means no possibility of a resit . To fail is invariably to die, and today the Times prints a list of the dead.

Our Special Investigation seeks to get to the heart of the institutional mentality behind a School that sanctions the death of its pupils, and asks: in this day and age, are deaths in Finals necessary at all? At every turn the Guild has tried to block us, to conceal, hide, obfuscate and cover up. There is the shocking secret of the _misericordia_, for instance, a mediaeval survival the Guild seeks to conceal as its deepest darkest secret. We learnt from sources close to the Patrician that Lord Vetinari himself has accused Guild president Lord Downey of the most shocking negligience. We ask: how long can this go on?

_On Other Pages:-_

_A "Wind of Change" has begun to blow across Howondalaand, says Patrician (International)_

_New "Valkyrie Division" composed entirely of female personnel in formation for Borogravian Army:- Perks tipped for promotion under General Froc? (see Women's Pages – "An Equality Too Far?")-_

_Today's Humorous Vegetable – see page 27 for our droll regular feature_

_Note that from today, the Times is adopting its new signature typeface of Times New Latatian, which we hope will make for a clearer and easier-to-read newspaper. _

* * *

Alice Band took her boots off and gratefully flexed her toes. It had been a long day on the dig, but at least they were establishing that the old Latatian civilization had maintained a _latifundia_ in this part of Brindisi. She considered the working tools on the table, her trusty pick and shovel, the graded brushes and trowels for fine close-in work. She was unrecognizable as the schoolteacher she was for most of the year. The severe hairstyling was replaced by a loose long pony-tail, her auburn hair hanging long and free. The severe half-lens glasses she wore in class were replaced by deeply tinted full-lens glasses, proof against the strong Brindisian sun. Her clothing was minimal and practical: denim shorts offering full freedom of movement, and an armless tunic fitting close to her body. As Alice had a long lean athletic figure, it would have caused commotion in the classroom and extra work for Washable Topsy with regard to the boys' bedsheets. As she was also an Assassin, she had an easily accessible throwing-knife on each thigh, as well as less visible equipment elsewhere on her person. Her hunting bow rested here, un-used, in her lodgings.

She drew her legs up on the bed and started to write her account of the day. She had barely started when there was a knock on the door.

_Signorina Band? Ė una visitatora!_

_Grazie, Francesca. Un'instante, per favore!_

Alice set her journal aside and went to the door. Her landlady had brought a visitor who she instantly recognized…

"Hello, miss. You said if I were in the area I should drop by and see you."

Jocasta Wiggs. The same slightly frizzy slightly curly blonde-brown hair, cute little nose and slightly worried expression. Alice smiled, delightedly.

"Come on in. And it's not "miss" any more, I'm Alice, now!" Alice thanked Francesca, closed the door, and smiled at Jocasta. Jocasta smiled back, uncertainly.

"So what beings you here?"

"Just hiking. Millie had to go straight to the military academy. To be honest, it's a bit boring without her."

So you thought you'd drop in on your old spinster schoolmistress? How thoughtful of you!"

Alice felt Jocasta's eyes on her. Regarding her with... hunger? Frank interest?

_Of course. She's never seen me dressed like this before. _

Alice took Jocasta's hand and squeezed it. Jocasta didn't pull away. Their eyes met.

"And to be honest, miss…Alice… oh I wish I knew the words!"

Alice drew Jocasta into a hug.

"Does it need words? I'm so pleased you're here." She felt Jocasta's arms around her, her fingers stroking the thin material of the tunic, her face snuggling into Alice's shoulder.

_Have I got the right? Even now? So soon after she's been my pupil?_

Jocasta raised her head. She appeared to have made a decision.

"My name is Jocasta Wiggs" she announced. "I'm over eighteen years of age, making me legally adult. I have left school. I have survived the Assassins' Guild final exam. I can legally feel sexual attraction. I am capable of choosing people I'd love to go to bed with, and I'm even free to decide what sex they should be. And I prefer girls."

She looked Alice in the eye. No longer teacher, no longer in loco parentis and free to act, Alice kissed her former pupil, who kissed back just as enthusiastically.

_Just don't say anything, _Alice thought, taking Jocasta by the hand and leading her to the bed, with every intention of furthering her education. _And this will turn out just fine._** (2)**

* * *

**(1)**_ exothermic alchemical reagents:-_ Explosives

**(2) **Alice is fulfilling a promise she made during a climatic scene of _**The Second-Greatest Thrill.**_


	28. Final Reflections

**GC27 - more aftermaths**

Lord Downey watched Sylvia Heald-Green make her confident but still quite unsteady way from one end of the parallel bars to the other, her lower legs encased in supporting material and a large leather brace encircling her back. Her gait still wasn't perfect – she lurched slightly, hence the need for the supporting bars to be there – but it was noticeable how much command she was asserting over the movement and normal functioning of her legs.

"Quite remarkable, my dear" he said, thoughtfully. "And – let me get this straight – four weeks ago, you not only _broke_ your back, you _shattered _it?"

"Apparently so, sir" she said. "I was unconscious. A Watch patrol found me and I was taken to this hospital. Mr Igor" she nodded at one of the medical staff in the room, "and his associates apparently operated on my back for five hours."

Downey looked over at the Igor, a typical example of his family.

"Backth are tricky, my lord." the Igor said. "Definitely the most complex part of the human body. But nothing is beyond our understanding of modern healing and medithine. The difficult part, after rebuilding the spine, wath persuading her broken spinal chord to reconnect and make new links and assothiations. This ith still happening now and cannot be rushed. I ethtimate it will be another six to eight weeks, with physiotherapy, before she is walking and running as well as she did before her fall."

_He said "physiotherapy" with no hint of a lisp, _Downey thought._ I've heard the lisp is an affectation and the younger Igors are learning to dispenthe – dispense – with it. _

Then a memory struck him, and a pit of horror yawned in his gut. Downey went white, and swayed. The Igor stepped forward, and steered him to a chair.

"Sir? Are you feeling alright, sir?" the girl asked.

Downey smiled, weakly. He was feeling alternately hot and cold, his heart was pounding, and the memory of Martin Gower-Lacey, lying broken in an alley with his legs folded at un-natural angles, kept intruding on him. The young Assassin's honest face, trusting the Master to do what was right and correct. And Downey had, at the time and with genuine honesty and integrity, done what he considered to be _absolutely_ the right thing. It was a mercy, after all. _If the boy had lived, he would be crippled for life. _

Now he wasn't sure at all.

"You can…repair…badly broken backs?"

"Oh, assuredly yeth, my Lord!"" the Igor beamed, offering him a glass of water.

Downey closed his eyes again. And a completely unfamiliar emotion, a new emotion, an unpleasant emotion, surged through him.

Guilt.

Tinged with a little shame. And regret.

Downey regained a measure of control. Maybe there was _one_ thing he could do for the Gower-Lacey boy, even belatedly.

"Tell me, Mr Igor. If I wanted to employ members of your family, how would I go about doing it?"

The Lady Sybil's Igor coughed, discreetly.

"It hath already been done, my Lord. The clacks was sent to We-R-Igors in Bad Schuschein some days ago. There is an Igor and an Igorina on their way to the Assassinth' Guild even as we thpeak."

"Who ordered this?"

"I am not at liberty to divulge the identity of the aunt of the Patrician involved, my Lord. But Lord Vetinari may mention it to you at thome point, to clarify that you are now employing two members of my family."

Downey gave up.

"An Igorina?"

"A female Igor, my lord. She will be skilled in all the specific ailments and maladies conthequent upon being female. Your female pupils may prefer to take their private worrieth to such a… _matron_. And perhapth your lady memberth of staff."

Downey saw the point.

Maybe this _was_ the best way forward for the Guild….

* * *

And, seven years prevously...

"Settle down, everyone". Grune di Nivor called from the high dais. The seventy or eighty accredited teaching members of the Assassins' Guild School both the full and part-time teachers, looked expectantly towards the dais.

"You will shortly receive your timetables and class allocations for the new teaching year. But first we need to resolve an outstanding item of business, which concerns the new houses of Study and the allocation of teaching staff to them as Housemasters. Ah, House_mistresses_, I beg your pardon.

"It has been decided that a hundred and eighty female pupils will commence at the School this year. Rebuilding work in the main School and construction of new buildings on an adjacent site is now very well advanced and will be completed within the next month.

"There will be four boarding forms and two forms of day pupils.

"All the boarding forms, for obvious reasons, will be single-sex. One of the day-pupil forms will also be single sex. However, taking a leaf from the book of the Thieves' Guild School, to whom, by the way, we are indebted for practical help and advice in this project, the second and third day classes will be mixed-sex. This will allow us to monitor how male and female pupils interact in close proximity. According to the Thieves' Guild, fully mixed classes appear to work best of all. We will see.

"Names for the new Houses are as yet provisional. Several have been given place-holder names, after districts of the City, for instance the new male scholarship pupil Broken Moon House, and the female boarders' Tump House.

"The Guild Council have made the following staff allocations:

Madame les Deux-Ėpées – you will take charge of Black Widow House. Miss Smith-Rhodes: you are to go to Raven House. Miss Band – you will take Tump House. Lady T'Malia will take responsibility for Scorpion House. These will be houses of study and accommodation for female boarders. Miss Sanderson-Reeves: in deference to the fact that you also have outside business interests, we will not ask you to take a boarding house.

As your premises are, um, the last on the builders' schedule, I'm afraid they only have the working name of B1 and C2 Houses as yet…"1

Joan raised a hand and interrupted him.

"As these are for Scholarship day pupils, mr di Nivor, can I be surprised they're low on the Guild's list of priorities?"

"It isn't _quite _like that, Miss Sanderson-Reeves. But as discussed, we would still very much like you to take the senior position of Head of Scholarship Pupils, in deference to your longer experience and great personal ability with Scholarship, Bursary and Charity pupils."

"You may be assured I will vocally represent my pupils at every opportunity. Incidentally, if a chap or a young gel makes it here on merit and talent, it can scarcely be called _charity,_ can it?"

Di Nivor smiled, weakly.

"Indeed, miss Sanderson-Reeves. Indeed. Moving swiftly on…"

The allocations of pupils to Houses were discussed. Last-minute changes were made and bargains struck among teachers, with several important principles in mind.

In the first year, it is vitally important _not_ to have pupils from warring countries in the same House. Thus, Borogravian pupils must _not_ go in the same form as Zlobenians.

The same principle apples to pupils from nations riven by civil war and internal dissent. Empire Loyalist Hergenians, for instance, are to be _rigorously_ separated from Republican Hergenians.

Religious wars and micro-crusades are also to be avoided. Omnian pupils in particular are to be politely reminded that there is a time and a place for religion, and that while religious expression is a fine thing, sometimes it can be taken too far.

The school does not discriminate on the grounds of race, ethnicity or skin colour. We have always taken the point of view that everybody's hard currency is equally acceptable. Boor and Kwa'Zulu pupils are coming to us for the first time and may forcibly need to be reminded of this. We have employed a Boor teacher and a Kwa'Zulu chaplain, also on the teaching staff, to ease their transition. (_Memo: Miss Smith-Rhodes may at times require further guidance on this point. Lady T'malia, can you monitor?)_

Other schools, in other planes of reality, rely on the wisdom of a quasi-magical "sorting hat" to direct the Pupil to the appropriate House.

On Filigree Street, it is done the hard way, with a lot of trial and error and room for last-minute changes.

* * *

1 All House names and most teacher allocations are taken from the list in the _**New Discworld Companion**_. Actually, in Terry Pratchett's notes to Josh Kidby's artwork in _**The Art of The Discworld, **_he gives Alice Band's house the alternative title of Mantis House. While this is entirely fitting (a predatory insect where the female kills and devours the male after sex) and fits better than Tump House, this is the only menion of Mantis House anywhere in the Canon. Everywhere else, Alice runs Tump House.


End file.
